The contents from this post is a result of a few insightful conversations with sensible people. Therefore, thank you, sensible people.You'll know who you are. (The post is not polished, and the chances of me editing it is rare.)
Ever since I got immersed in to the (non-activist) leftist movement at JNU, I have always tried to open my ears to the voices of the poor and the oppressed. I try to look out for those that 'fall between the cracks' by either blending in too much or by being too silent. The orphan and the widow; the bonded laborer, the HiV victim cannot find the words to express their distress. They have been taught to scream silently, so that people like ourselves wouldn't hear them when we walk over them. And while there are a few who take advantage of their weakness and snatch from them what little they have, the rest of us either choose not to look in that direction, or mumble a prayer before deleting the memory off our head. I however, try to keep my eyes peeled and my ears dirt-free so I can catch the slightest whimper to either pray for or do something about it. Or so i thought...
I now realize that I am far-sighted; oblivious to the problems budding in my own college campus, just until a prophetic friend pointed it out to me. There is an entire set of people in my own college that look at me as a hi-fi person. As someone brought up in several urban settings, with (relatively) extensive computer knowledge, and who calls English his heart-language, I get a status of being one of 'those' 'hi-fi' people, while the 'normal' or 'simple' people born in a rural or poorer urban set-ups do not relate with me. There are other people who refuse to converse in English, but can understand it, and I don't make a move to get to know them. Well, we can't blame anyone for that; we all have our different wavelengths and areas of interest, and it is these that define who our friends are.
But this obsession with sticking with 'my own kind' is the beginning of the polarization of our campus, where people form different cliques based on their ethnicity and class-status. Everybody has their own comfort zone. But this gradual increase in the chasm between cliques deafens our ears to any cry from help from outside the group. Even Facebook doesn't effectively bridge the class/ethnicity divide between groups in our campus. The Lord, who's eyes range throughout the earth looking for a heart committed to Him and His mission for the 'orphan' and the 'widow' would reject us; who refuse to lift our head outside our comfort-group-huddle and take a look around now and then.
But why is it that we don't look outside our group? Because it involves a sense of insecurity of thinking differently from those within. Thinking differently from the group could lead you to a slow exile from the group itself. But in order to stand between the gap for the poor and the oppressed such small sacrifices will have to be made.
