Compassionate Humans

Max Serna

Ms. Williams

English 1A

October 22 2013

Compassionate Humans

Compassion is one of the simplest yet most difficult things to accomplish as human beings living in the world we do, with gang violence, drug usage, or economic stability (poor, homeless, etc.). The action of being compassionate is a moral, it proves where a person stands in the situation, those who have been through similar experiences will have more compassion to those that they see are enduring the situation. People who are less compassionate most likely have never had to be in such a situation that required compassion in the first place. In my opinion we should have compassion towards people, but there should also be standards as to where we stand with being compassionate, only when the situation is understandable rather than total insanity.

Gang violence is an increasingly big issue, especially in areas that are filled with poverty, most of these members dropped out of school at young ages and started learning on the streets. They didn't have anything for them in school, nobody to call friends or anyone who understood them, a gang to them was like an opportunity to be surrounded by people who they consider “family”, they had to deal with whatever came to them, beatings, being shot, killing, and nobody ever considers the way that they get affected when they are exposed to this as young children. In the book “Savage Inequalities” by John Kozol, he mentions how a portion of the students who are failing and dont receive any assistance in school tend to fall for gangs. This is when our compassion should show, although the majority of us are not and most likely will not end up in gangs we can still think of our children or future children, think about how we would feel if they were going down that road. Theses people that are in gangs are simply confused kids that are simply trying to belong with a group that can relate to them, if we simply call them no good thugs that should be locked up in prison. There is still good in a lot of these kids, and all they need is a chance to be accepted and allow them to turn their lives around rather than letting them sink deeper in a life that will most likely get them killed.