Genocide: The Worst Humanitarian Disaster I am not a refugee. I am a white, middle class American woman. I am a student at a public high school in the suburbs. My country is not torn apart by genocide. My parents were not killed. My government does not rape me. My family doesn't live in a tent in the middle of the desert. My community doesn't survive on $1 a week for food, but my desires and passions connect with those who do. There are hundreds of us scattered on the lawn of the Washington Monument. There's a lot of space, but we all huddle together, helping and encouraging each other. We are on our knees in the grass, creativity pouring out of us and into our posters: the sounds of the markers are constantly being closed and uncovered and clicking loudly. There is hurried conversation, people throwing their heads back as they laugh. The clouds above shine so white; you might mistake it for the sunlight shining on the nation's capital. From Florida to Alaska, we all took different flight routes to reach our common destination, Washington DC. We knew nothing about each other except that we were all there with the same goal in mind. Several hundred of us started where others left off, trying to make up for lost time, trying to catch up with that middle generation. It was evident from the Washington Monument-sized smiles on their faces, that the generations before us, and even after us, as we watched the children clap their hands and stare at us wide-eyed, are relieved to see that there are teenagers who are also willing to fight for change in the world. Some of us are aware of the problems in the world and are willing to fight for justice. It was the most powerful experience and feeling of k...... middle of paper ......ures and ethnic groups; they see that everyone is human and everyone is similar in this sense. This is the age when they need to be taught that being different is not wrong, but genocide at all costs is. “Now, courses focused on genocide and other human rights violations developed in the early 1970s are part of a broader response to rewriting the curriculum to include topics and issues traditionally ignored or silenced” (Aspel). Another lesson they need to learn is the pyramid of hate. At the base of the pyramid are prejudicial attitudes that involve the need to find a scapegoat, and then the next level are acts of prejudice that include insults and ridicule. The next level is discrimination, then violence and finally genocide. When you observe prejudicial attitudes and acts, you need to stop them before the situation escalates into something much worse.