CHARITY OR JUSTICE?

CHARITY OR JUSTICE?

Now that the the holiday season is near, we hear everywhere that this is the season of love and brotherhood. The media, our religious organizations, and society in general encourage us to do charity work in order to act is the spirit of brotherly love. But is that really what brotherly love means?

In San Francisco, the number of evictions has tripled since 1996, 25% of homeless people are families, 40% of homeless people work but to not make enough to pay for decent housing, and the waiting list for a family shelter is more than 100 people long. In this context, brotherly love has to reach beyond charity — it requires a commitment to end the injustice that is the root cause of these problems.

Donating clothes, toys or money to people who need them will never end poverty.

Donating time to serve free food to hungry people will never end hunger.

Donating money to a shelter will never end the housing crisis.

It doesn’t matter if someone donates once or a million times, charity will never end injustice. In fact, in some ways these short-term solutions hide the reality and gravity of the problem. These gestures are like using band-aids to treat a bullet wound. And in the end, charity only makes the person that donates feels less guilty about the problem. Meanwhile, we ignore the bullet — the root cause of the problem — the unjust system under which we live, that creates and defends riches for the few and poverty for the rest of us.

The injustice of capitalism is that the rich profit at the expense of the poor of every race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, etc. And they rely on the lack of unity among different oppressed people in order to keep attacking us. This is why it is key for oppressed people to fight together for justice. This is what brotherly love really means: organizing with solidarity among oppressed people to get justice. Our solidarity is an essential weapon to overthrow this system that oppresses us!

But it is not enough only to understand this evil system or seek solidarity among oppressed people — we must act for justice. This means organizing to defend ourselves from the attacks of the system and fighting for what we need: housing for all, education for all, food for all, mental and physical health services for all, a living wage, etc.

In organizing for justice, we build people’s power for revolutionary change. This is the true brotherly love that will create the just world that we all deserve.

Maria Poblet