If you repress rather than unlock the potential of large groups of Americans, what's that going to do to our economy? It's going to contract, not expand.
The biggest road block to action on genocide and other human rights crimes is ignorance. Most people just don't know that such things are happening, and often, if they have a vague idea they are happening, there is a feeling that there is nothing that can be done to stop these crimes.
Slavery, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, subordination, and human rights abuse transform and adapt with the times.
Africans are on the front lines of humanitarian efforts, distributing life-saving aid in dangerous environments. Africans comprise the vast majority of peacekeepers in civil conflict on that continent. Africans for the most part lead peace negotiations for the wars being fought in Africa.
In human rights and peacemaking, it's really about having a solid concrete goal - the reduction of human suffering somewhere in the world - and then doing what is required to get that goal achieved.
Americans' perceptions of Africa remain rooted in troubling stereotypes of helplessness and perpetual crisis.
