I heard a story on NPR yesterday morning dealing with water quality in America. (August 8, 2022 on 1A). What immediately struck me was the plight of poor communities and communities of color who seem to have no recourse to healthy water. This is particularly true of the Navajo Nation where water pipes have not been replaced for decades. Is water inequity not a human rights violation?

The BBC recently reported on migrant children in an army camp (Fort Bliss) near San Antonio, Texas (US Migrant Camp Kids 'Feel Like They're in Prison', 23.June 2021). Similar reports by the BBC purport that thousands of migrant children are in camps, living in deplorable conditions and in desperate need of medical attention." 

According to the Washington Examiner as well as local Greensboro, NC media reporting outlets, the Biden Administration has signed a five year contract for the housing and care of migrant children to be housed at the vacant Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, NC. (June 26, 2022)

All of these examples - and there are many more - remind us that we Americans are not immune to human rights violations. But we have a habit of criticizing our adversaries for their national programs and sins such as the Uyghurs in China. Or human rights violations in North Korea. Or Human rights violations on the part of Turkey against the Kurdish people. How many nations can say that they do not practice human rights violations?

Of our Allies, the Australians have, for hundreds of years, practiced an abysmal human rights policy toward the Aboriginal indigenous peoples. Canada has only recently hosted Pope Francis for a joint mea culpa regarding the treatment of indigenous peoples, especially children brutalized in Catholic-run schools

In Japan, home of our noble allies, there exists a shadow caste, known as the burakumin or eta. These are Japan's "untouchables" and never spoken of. Asian societies are full of such inequities: India is but the largest nation to segregate it's people, often harshly. Only in New Zealand have the white people developed a rapprochement with the Maori peoples. But we Americans don't dare point out fingers at our allies! There should be fingers pointed back at our own streets and parks.

Every street corner features one or more beggars holding cardboard signs,"will work for money," or "Wife and three children." Frequently the children are on the side of the street also.

Our diplomats and top government leaders love to bring up the issue of human rights all over the world while ignoring our own. We berate the Cubans and point to the many braving the waters - and the sharks, to swim to Miami. Yet we speak not a word about "Gitmo," the infamous camp that should have been closed during the first Obama administration. And this does not take in the shame of Iraq's abu Ghraib.

Human rights violations should be addressed but first by the countries willing to point fingers at themselves. Before we tell our neighbors to change policies, we must be willing to do so in our own communities. Who in America spoke for the Jewish people in the Holocaust where men, women, and children were gassed and cremated at Auschwitz  and other death camps. There were people, Like Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary who braved the Nazis to save countless Jews, but few nations. The United States and Canada knew what was happening but said and did nothing.

Before we criticize and point fingers, we need to look at our own deficiencies and treatment of people. All men might have been created equal, but all men are clawing up the mountain of democracy, oblivious to these around them or below them. And those were white men, no women and no people of color.