a place where police kill black boys on mopeds

had an IM conversation today. i hate IM. i started using it only to make it a bit easier to communicate with nicky from eritrea. so when i get messages from people who aren't nicky, my gut reaction is to ignore them. 
   
a friend from eritrea IM'ed me today. a friend who had escaped to sudan sometime during my last few months in eritrea. he's in khartoum, sudan, not in the best of states. told me that he thought he would leave eritrea and that his family would help him. he has a sister in california who has been ignoring his phone calls. so the family isn't exactly helping. i tried to tell him what little helpful things i could. like don't go down to darfur. 
  
no, but seriously.... 
  
this kind of conversation brings up so many emotions and nuanced thoughts and attitudes that it's hard to put into coherent words... 
  
i meet many eritreans who have nothing but praise for america, although they only know it through word of mouth and media images. i suppose the most indelible image they have is that it is a place infinitely superior to their own, and if they were transported there then their lives would accordingly be infinitely superior to their lives in eritrea. many ask me questions about america, and i answer in a way that i feel is thorough, although this is in direct contrast to many things they have heard and believe. yes, there is poverty. yes, there is brutal racism. no, it is not cheap to go to the hospital or get medicine. no, it is not free. no, higher education is not free either. yes, you have to work your ass off, especially if you are an immigrant from the third world, just to make ends meet. i've convinced many people, not through designed schemes but through honest opinions, that america is not all that it's cracked out to be. a friend of mine has told me something like, i'm glad i talked to you...before i wanted to go to america...now i think what kind of place is it... 
  
but still, there are countless people throughout the world, not just the third, who wish to come to america to improve their lives, to make some money, to get an education, to escape the no-future they see hanging in front of them. and i'm not telling them not to. i'm not saying that those aren't commendable desires. i'm saying that many times their eyes are filled with delusions about their desired destination. and for all i can tell, many may remain deluded even after landing in the land of myths and dreams. 
  
my friend IM'ed me. he is in sudan. he needs help. his californian sister is ignoring him. he asks me, can't i tell my government, my friend who is poor is in sudan, he was my friend when i was in eritrea, he's very kind, he wants an education, he promises he will serve whoever helps him. or aren't there any organizations or individuals who will help. 
  
what crushes me the most, or not the most but a lot, about these personal stories emanating from the vicious power dynamics of our world, is the naivete in his plea. the assumption that if he could only contact mr. george w, he could be saved. and you can understand his situation. he has escaped his country hoping for prosperity and education. he is alone in a new land. he has been abandoned by his family. he needs someone to help. someone has to help him, he is all alone. won't that great liberator help him? he who unleashed thousands of his own poor to kill thousands of mesopatamia's poor to liberate them? he who unleashes AIDS aid not in the interest of those who are suffering from the disease, but in the interest of his own pharmaceutical companies? he who aided ethiopia as it carpet-bombed your cities. the list can go on, but i don't know if what i'm saying is going anywhere. 
  
i told my friend, look, my government doesn't care about my friend in sudan. especially if he doesn't have a western passport. america's not the mythical land of president george and roses, it's a place where police kill black boys on mopeds. as for individuals, i don't know of any who can bring you to the country without documentation, unless they're running an immigrant-smuggling racketeer. as for organizations, again, we're not looking for immigrant smuggling operations, but there are probably some organizations working inside sudan. find them. he has an appointment with the UN in september. they will decide whether or not to give him refugee status. if they do, he tells me he may get sent to a rich country, or go off to a refugee camp in sudan. 
  
this story, this story that has played itself out so many times, in the lives of those who just want a little more life for themselves, leaves me frustrated and confused. and yet, i am one of those from the third world who were "lucky" enough to make it out, thanks to my parents. and yet, i don't know how i feel about it. ungrateful you say? not so simple, i say. and perhaps i don't have to feel anything about it, since it was never my decision to come, plymouth rock landed on me, you could say. but i realize that i speak from, and live in, a privileged position. but that doesn't mean i don't have the right to speak, and critique the system that produced that position. 
   
for me, it's not a slam-dunk. there's no straight shot. you can't say which is better, to leave for the west or stay at home. and i don't think it's fair to lay blame on either position, especially when 90% of those laying blame are in a postion to never have to make those choices. and i don't believe it's a matter of better or worse, right or wrong, but an individual decision made in a world of maddening inequality and privilege distortions. what's important, i think, is to take aim at that world of maddening inequality and it's effects, if one has the privilege to do so.    
  
a few things.... 
  
i hate the white boy who can sit down at his fat meal and smugly say how awful it is that all these skilled third worlders are dying to leave their country and brain-draining the shit out of it. yes, true. but easy for you to say when all you have to do is take your little 2 year tour of service down to timbuktu or katmandu and feel mother teresa-like enough to return and settle down to your LA tan and your New York walk. what about the structures, perpetuated by our governments, that created the conditions that make people want to escape hell? it's certainly not just about individual choices. 
  
and number 2, as an unfounded hypothesis, i think what the unskilled third world worker who makes his/her way to the west to clean the white man's toilets and drive his cars loses in the way of dignity and happiness and a sense of belonging, can be equal to if not greater than what he/she gains in "wealth" (i.e. crumbs of the crumbs of fat cats in the rich world) and "standard of living" (i.e. wog, nigger, chink, foreigner). 
  
so tentative conclusion....it's not easy for the third world (wo)man, whether in west or east, north or south, third or first...and that's never been said before, right?