Explode me Brain

So, last night in class I had to decide on a "vision" for a social program I will hypothetically set up during the semester. Well, this ended up stressing out my brain more than it maybe should have.
I knew that I wanted to set up a program to address community health in low socioeconomic communities. I knew that I wanted my program to introduce fitness and nutrition education and practices in these communities.
My professor then said, think bigger, think...what would a perfect world look like to you in terms of community health. So then I said, well, individuals in these communities living healthier lifestyles. He said, how about, All individuals living healthier lifestyles. Then I thought, how about that...why limit these ideas to one population of people?
This got me thinking about the whole American population and how many times we segregate without trying at all. By wanting to help low socioeconomic communities with their health, I was placing them in the category of "unhealthy" while leaving middle and high class communities in the category of "healthy."
Dang! Obviously I didn't mean to, but I was being the benevolent researcher. The girl who wants to come into a community I know hardly anything about and change how they do things because I say it will be better for them.

At this point, I started thinking about politicians. How these people stand in front of a crowd and shout out how they will change things to be "better" for the American people.
One candidate may be talking to one group of people, another candidate to another group of people. And then these two groups of people sit and argue about what is best for the American people. All the while...who are these American people we are arguing for? Are they us? Are they the low socioeconomic community that "needs us to help?"

One thing I know for sure is that I don't want government, or anyone else to decide what is best for me without thoroughly consulting me first. So, why is it ok for government to do that to whole communities of people? Well, because that looks like "social service" and sounds good and makes people feel good about themselves for doing it.

What should it look like? I don't know yet, I need to let these thoughts simmer for a while since they just recently boiled over. Obviously I don't think it is wrong to care about another community, seemingly, less privileged and in need of help. I think people just need to go one step further in giving the decisions about "what kind of help" to the people experiencing the problem. Which, is the whole purpose of a community organizer....so maybe this brings me all the way back to my vote for Obama.

That's all for now.