Prompt: The question or rights is something that has been a global challenge throughout history

and is currently a significant concern in many countries. Building on what you heard in the
interdisciplinary discussion, how has this topic impacted your life and might you choose to
address this challenge personally?
Luckily for me, I am fortunate enough to have never had to experience having to defend
my human rights. Growing up however, the topic of human rights violations was always talked
about like it was a far away problem, and only existed in other poorer, less developed countries.
As I have gotten older, I realize the issue of human rights is much more closer that I had
originally thought. Even more challenging, sometimes it’s not recognized or talked about, which
makes it even more difficult to address. The more I become aware of human rights violations, the
more I feel as if I should take a stand against it. However, I’m still not sure of what that means.
For example, does that mean protesting by refusing to buy a company’s products? What if that
company is my only option? Are there even large companies out there who are successful
without violating human rights? There’s a lot of questions for me to answer. Sometimes, I feel
like engaging in that kind of protest only just causes me inconvenience and doesn’t help anyone
else. That being said, if I really cared, I wouldn’t support a company with unethical work
practices, right? Then it becomes a question of if I am doing this to make myself feel better or if
I am actually helping other people.
I think if you asked most people, they would say that they cared about global human
rights. However, when confronted with these questions that would require some commitment in
their actions, I think many of them wouldn’t partake in it. Personally, it’s hard to get others to
care about human rights when they’re comfortable in their own lives. It’s not to say that they’re
bad people and would go out and violate human rights, but they would willingly let it happen to
others without intervening. This apathy is hard to combat, and I don’t understand how to change
that. When possible, I always try to counter this apathy not by shaming the person into caring,
but by trying to lead them out of it by emphasizing on the importance of the impact of one
person. Hopefully over time, this can help push the people around me to think more on the
effects of their actions.
One thing that was said that I really appreciated was that protecting undocumented rights
is not the same thing as protecting undocumented people. This really raised an important
question for me of who decides what is right and humane? If defending human rights is not the
same thing as defending the human, should we even call it human rights? I’d never considered
these questions before, but now it’s become clear that human rights is complicated not just in
practice, but in concept as well. If I was to take away anything from this discussion, it is that
looking at any scenario from a empathetic point of view is a necessity when making decisions
that could drastically affect large groups of people. Paying attention to what you are and aren’t
silent on have also become priorities of mine. Even though I don’t have all my answers, I know
I’m heading in the right direction.