This was found in the back of an anthropology textbook. I wish I could cite the actual source, but unfortunately cannot. I found it compelling and want to share it with my readers in hope that it will inspire curiosity, compassion, indignation, outrage and advocacy. I also hope it inspires a deep appreciation for how blessed so many of us are to simply be born into privilege that is so easily taken for granted, and also a better understanding that some, by no fault of their own, lose the birth lottery. I encourage you to take the below in and contemplate what it might mean:
“If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village the size of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human rations remaining the same, this village would look something like the following:
There would be
- 57 Asian, 21 Europeans, 14 from North and South America and and 8 Africans.
- 52 would be female and 48 would be male.
- 7o would be non-caucasion and 30 would be caucasian.
- 89 would be heterosexual and 11 would be homosexual.
- 6 people would posses 59% of all the world’s wealth, and they would all be from the United States.
- 80% would live in substandard housing.
- 70% would be unable to read.
- 50% would suffer some form of malnutrition.
- 1 individual would be near death and 1 would be a newborn.
- 1 individual would have a college degree.
When we consider our would from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and and education becomes glaringly apparent.