If a rich man, a poor man, a doctor, a lawyer and a nurse were all stranded on a deserted island with only enough supplies for four people to survive, which person should be allowed to die? The most common response, according to Minister Gerald J. Evans, is the poor man, unfairly judged by financial status alone.
Evans' speech on poverty was one of many events students were invited to attend this week. The few weeks prior to Thanksgiving are unofficially recognized as National Hunger Awareness Weeks, when many schools work to raise students' consciousness about the poverty much of the world experiences.
"I believe that awareness of issues leads people to action… By exploring and learning about hunger in the world and right in our own community, people can begin to act on it," said Sophomore Chuckie Kamm, one of Oberlin's Hunger Awareness week organizers.
The small crowd assembled in Dascomb Monday night listened to Evans speak on various topics, from his own childhood in a "ghetto" to the reason why poverty remains such a problem today.
Evans, who works at the First Community Interfaith Institute of Lorain County, returned to Oberlin for his second year as guest speaker during Hunger Awareness Week. His speech on poverty in America concluded a day of "fasting" for students who gave up their meals on Monday. Students were provided with rice and potatoes for dinner and lunch in place of the normal assortment of foods from which they usually choose, with the purpose of simulating meals in Campus Dining Services to feed participants will be contributed instead to two agreed-upon organizations in need of financial assistance. Planners will announce the amount raised and the student-selected organizations which will receive the money at the benefit concert at the `Sco Saturday night.
Evans' speech both provided the opportunity for students to learn about the various organizations established to aid poverty-stricken people, and urged everyone to look beyond a person's appearance to his or her basic human needs. "Poverty in the United States is based on a lack of respect for human beings . . . it is about being hungry not only for food, but for dignity. Americans with a poverty of spirit have been beaten down, destroyed in the name of the best interests of those people in `power,'" Evans said.
In discussing the vicious cycle of poverty which he equates to "a new way of making slaves," Evans ranked Americans into two categories: "the haves" and "the have-nots." The haves, those who grow up secure in the fact that they have money and power, must learn to help the have-nots, or those who are "born and raised to think that they are nothing," explained Evans as he outlined his goals for breaking the cycle.
Although now 51 years old, Evans still remembers "the little boy with the dirty clothes, the uncombed hair and the runny nose" he used to be. His audience, though small, listened intently to the tale of a deaf-mute boy raised in squalor on the street, insulted by teachers and social services members alike.
"It took me 16 years to talk. . . When people would taunt me by saying, `You can't talk,' my response would be, `Well, you can't think,'" Evans said.
Evans currently works, through Interfaith, with people in situations similar to those of his childhood. According to Evans, the Institute "makes people think," successfully sending hundreds of people to college independent of government grants. "We take people who have been taught that they are nothing, and teach them that they're everything," said Evans.
In his closing remarks, Evans stated that, "Somewhere inside each of us is a desire to love the unwanted, reach the unreachable, help the hopeless and motivate the unmotivated. I dare you to go into somebody's skin and live there until you understand poverty."
Planners of Hunger Awareness Week aimed to do just that. Other events included a guest speaker lecturing on the issue of hunger among children, a speech on hunger and health in the black community, a "Great American Sleep-out" that was canceled due to organizational difficulties, and various fund-raisers that will continue until Saturday night's benefit concert.
Students who attended Evans' lecture reported experiencing hunger after their day-long fast, but added that they could now empathize with the way much of the world lives. This, according to Kamm, was the ultimate goal of Hunger Awareness Week.
"[Not going to meals] wasn't so much of a sacrifice … we could earn so much more money if the campus did this sort of thing on a regular basis. It shouldn't be just a one-time thing," said junior Liz Scarbrough.
Sophomore Jihad Id-Deen said, "I'm happy we talked about this issue because it's very important, but I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't a bigger turnout. Maybe this says something about what's really important to Oberlin students, and that there's more apathy here than you would think."
Students who fasted had the opportunity to vote for the two organizations they most wanted the money taken from their meals to benefit, donated funds and volunteered to work on Hunger Awareness committees of the future.
In his speech, Evans urged people "to think beyond the soup kitchen ... The same people who went to one yesterday went today, so what has changed? There's more that people can do to help out. What these people need is a miracle that will change their hearts, so they'll finally learn that they're not throw-away garbage, but recycled and full of hope."
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