100 Reasons To Change The World

 

100 Reasons To Change The World

I want to put things in perspective- I've tried to work out all the facts.
I've condensed the world to 100 people- with the current state of play intact.
There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans- 8 would be from Africa
With the remaining 14 humans being,
From both the south and the north of the western hemisphere.
70 are illiterate- 50 suffer from starvation
And out of these just one of them will have any education
30 of them Christians and 30 of them white
5 possess two thirds of the wealth,
(Is it time to call in 'human rights'?)
Percentages reveal these 5 are born in the U.S.A
So no offence to anyone, but I don't like this American Way.
When 80 of the 100 are forced to live sub-standard lives
In ghettos and in shanty towns- is this the 70 non Christians- or the 70 non-whites?
You could assume the other 10 don't come from segregation
But all in all you could call this 'disproportional representation'
So I've put it into context- I've tried to pinpoint some harsh facts,
That a planet full of people have to distribute throughout the ranks
And pretty soon this harsh reality may be knocking at our door
Asking:
'Why is three quarters of this wealthy world so needlessly poor?'

 

Author's Note

I hate it when people are reduced to statistics or collateral, but I thought writing this might help put things in perspective!

Reviews

[Sasha]

This is so interesting. I thought this was going to be a piece with literally 100 reasons (like my 51 Reasons has exactly that), but I like the spin you put on it. I love the message you're trying to send and much of it is true, though you could argue that there are needlessly poor people everywhere - including in the US. Still brilliantly done, though.

[Desert Dreamer]

Another thing to think about is, maybe some of those "poor" people who still have their cultures intact are happier than us. Maybe having wealth isn't so important. I don't like living in this consumerist culture and would prefer to live "poor" in a culture where money doesn't matter...but as long as we live here, money does matter and the rules are set up for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer, it is hard to break through from poor to rich.
I wonder how many out of your 100 still have their native culture intact? This is a great poem to start a lot of thinking

[Legion]

It will always be this way. Even if you divided all the money up in the world equally, within a few years there would be the rich and the poor again. Even Jesus said something to the effect that you can not save the poor from their lot. In the end, it is human nature and unfortunately we have not found a decent way to change that. Good write though.