Our English class went to the United Nations at New York City on Friday, February 2nd. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot about how the United Nations works. The building was huge and we only got to see a small part of it. Out tour guide walked very fast and had very long hair. She was Asian and had a unique accent. I noticed that there were tours being given in all different languages such as Japanese and German. This fact enforces the diversity that makes up our world. There were people there form all over the world. We viewed the room in which the security council hosts their meetings. Up top there were rooms in which translators sit up and listen to what is being said in the meetings and translate through the ear pieces that are next to each chair in the room. I thought that it was really neat how many languages they offer and it emphasized that English is just one of many languages across the globe. We are sort of confined here in our own little world of Stonington, Connecticut. Traveling to New York reminded me of the diversity that is just right around the corner and throughout the Earth.
Once we were done with our tour of the building, we went into a little classroom, where a speaker gave us his two cents about the issue of poverty. I learned that out of the 6 billion people that inhabit the Earth, more than 1 billion live on less than 1 dollar a day and 2.4 billion live on less than 2 dollars a day. It made me realize just how lucky I really am. I felt that the speaker was good because he didn’t act too professional and didn’t use a wide range of vocabulary and confusing statistics. He helped me understand that there was a problem and gave our class advice on how to go about solving it. I felt that I could relate to him more because he was younger and worldly.
Walking around New York was interesting. I’ve been there many times before, yet I am still astounded at the amount of pollution and devastation filtered through its streets. The buildings there are huge. I don’t think there is a square foot of open space or grass. I have often wondered where all of the people who live in New York sleep at night. I suppose many of them do not live there, but rather work there during the day and go home at night. Another thing that crossed through my mind is how expensive it must be to own a car in the city. You have to have a place to park it and gas prices are terrible and traffic is horrible. Cars are sort of a waste of space in New York. But I suppose there are always parking garages for your vehicles as well. Our country is growing vertically. We are making up for the lost ground by building upward. I wonder if we will soon lose the significance of a patch of grass. I suppose there are parks in New York, or at least one park, but how beneficial is it to the millions of people who live there. The inner city schools are packed with playgrounds on concrete. People who pass by you in the streets are unfriendly and often pretend to be listening to their I-Pods or talking on their cell phones so as to avoid making eye contact with you. What kind of civilization is this? John’s Pizzeria was a little place on 45th avenue which was also built upward to make up for the lack of space which it acquired on the ground. A horrible fire in New York would be absolutely devastating. The buildings are all so close together, it is likely that they could all burn down in one sitting. We ate up on the highest balcony. It was very delicious.
Realting to my research topic of racism, I found an article on SIRS describing how corrupt the police system. With racists as police officers how can we ever rise from the evergrowing issue? I could very easily see how a person could cover up being racist and perform acts of hate in the huge city. Most of the homeless people and those who were obviously not in good financial condition were Blacks. If they weren’t black they were either Italiano or Asian. I did not see any white street sellers and hardly any Africans or African Americans within the UN building, with the exception of students who were there like me, from out of the city. It is apparent that Africa is the poorest of the continents. It has little say at the UN in its undeniable fate of its people. Its financial struggles are due to racist beliefs and unwillingness from other countries to help them out, who cannot help themselves.
