The population of the United States, every man, woman, and child, is about 319 million and counting. Think about it. That is a lot of folks.
But if you double that number, you have just about the number of people in India who poop outdoors. I’m not kidding. From The Wall Street Journal:
Some 620 million people across India defecate outside, the largest number world-wide. About 70% of rural Indians don’t use toilets, and 28 million children have no toilet facilities in school, according to Unicef. It is common practice for India’s mothers to dispose of their children’s waste in the open.
So, why is it that 70% of India’s rural population still don’t use indoor toilets, particularly since India’s rural economy is, according to Forbes, “booming”? The magazine says that rural wages “have risen by close to 15% per annum over the past ten years, compared to city wages which are down more than 2% over the same period.” So, again, why do these folks resist indoor dumping? The Wall Street Journal offers us a reason:
In rural areas, defecating outside has been the natural choice for centuries, said Vijayaraghavan Chariar, a sanitation expert at Delhi’s Indian Institute of Technology. “There’s a reason it’s known as ‘nature’s call,’ ” he said. “Some feel suffocated by toilets, and don’t see a connection between open defecation and poor health.”
That may seem odd to us. How can anyone, even rural people, not see the obvious health benefits of sanitary, poop-disposing plumbing? Why would anyone want to do their dirty work out in the open when they don’t have to?
Before we get too judgmental, maybe we should look at something that happened here in my state, in rural Missouri, that I will connect to those rural folks in India who prefer defecating in public.
Rosebud is a little town in the east central part of Missouri and, as per the 2010 census, boasts a population of 409 souls. Those souls are, overwhelmingly, animating white bodies. It would be difficult, probably impossible, to find in Rosebud one soul inhabiting an African-American body. And, knowing what I know about small towns in Missouri, most of the white-bodied souls in Rosebud belong to, or claim they belong to, Jesus, their savior and, presumably, their behavioral compass.
It happened last week that a group of about 75 demonstrators passed through Rosebud on their way to Jefferson City. The 134-mile demonstration march, organized by the NAACP and called “Journey for Justice,” began in Ferguson. The demonstrators, as USA Today reported, hoped “to bring light and attention to the disproportionate number of African-American men and boys who are killed by law enforcement officers across the country.”
But many of the white, Jesus-fearing folks of Rosebud—and of a neighboring city called Gerald, four miles away, population 1,345 and just as white—didn’t much appreciate the light and attention that the marchers, both black and white, were bringing through their town.
According to St. Louis Public Radio, the demonstrators “were greeted with the words ‘Shoot Thieves’ spray-painted on a large container.” In Gerald, they were greeted by, among others, these two good ol’ boys:
Rhea Willis, a public school instructor in St. Louis, was one of the marchers, along with her 15-year-old daughter. As St. Louis Public Radio reported, they and others had to endure being called “thieves” and yells of “Get a job! Get off welfare!” Then there was this:
One of the most disheartening sights, Rhea said, was seeing a young boy, about the age of 8, hold up a sign that said, “Go home, nigger.”
“It wasn’t a shock because I know how these small counties in Missouri are,” Rhea said. “I ex
pected it, but it wasn’t until you actually see it. Wow, it was amazing.”
While their bus was stopped and empty, someone shot at a window and shattered the glass. Some townsfolk left out 40-ounce beer cans, chicken wings and watermelon. Rhea said one woman was supportive and told them, “Good job!” But a man next to her said, “Yea, they are good niggers.”
It’s easy for Americans to look down on or even pity those rural people in India who have been defecating outside for centuries, who “feel suffocated by toilets, and don’t see a connection between open defecation and poor health.” But what happened last week in rural Missouri is just another kind of long-standing tradition, another kind of open defecation, another kind of human behavior that is connected to poor social health.
And although, fortunately, there aren’t as many people around these days who defecate in public, metaphorically or otherwise, there is still much work to be done to help ensure that human waste, whether it comes out of one end or the other, is not polluting the commonweal.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
Troy
/ December 8, 2014I wonder how many of those town folks in those two small cities don’t have jobs. Hmmmmm …….just sad, so sad…maybe the southern states should secede and be destroyed by their own means.
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ansonburlingame
/ December 9, 2014Duane,
Anyone with any sense knows that there are pockets of racism in America. In my view the size and intensity of such pockets has greatly decreased over the last 50 years, but, yes, more needs doing for BOTH sides. As I have said many times before, racism works both ways when bigots are involved.
Had a largely white only protest marched through South Chicago supporting the cops we can only imagine the reaction from the local populace. dominated by blacks. To deny such a possiblity is not clear thinking in my view.
The outrage over Ferguson and now NYC is racial outrage, white cops against black citizens, unarmed black citizens. Yet now even the wife and daughter of Garner claim the actions by police were not racially motivated but were a case of possible police overuse of force, against anyone, black, white, etc. Continuing to claim that only blacks suffer from racial animus from law enforcement creates yet another race dispute, approaching levels of violence. Remember the race riots in 1968. Are we going to go through such again in America? Should we over matters of only race?
I freely admit that, using today’s standards for calling someone a racist, I was raised as a racist in the 1940’s and 50’s. But over the years, 54 years (since HS graduation) and counting I have read and talked myself beyond, out of, such animous, like may other older Americans have done during that period.
If you or others herein want to discuss the possibility of overuse of police force, I am willing to engage as such. But as a conservative (but not a racist) my tendency is to support police when events become a “close call”. But I must see or hear ALL the evidence before making any call in such cases as well, not just two minute videos and headlines.
I heard a black activist on PBS last night calling for black “freedom”, meaning of course freedom from police. He also said he did not care about the law, only what was right. My “gut reaction” was to suggest no police patrol HIS neighborhood, never enter his neighborhood. That would allow him and his neighbors to be completely free from police!!!
As to his “right” versus the law, does he not know that we in America struggle mightly all the time to make laws “right”, not unequal for all Americans. If he rejects the law and only considers his view of his rights, how in the hell will others be protected against HIM, I wonder.
If you and yours continue to clamor over issues of race herein, I will disengage now. But if you want to discuss ways to improve the attitudes towards police on the part of blacks and the attitudes of some police towards some blacks, I will continue to comment. As well police use of force is a matter that should be discussed, but only in non-racial terms, as far as I am concerned.
Anson
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gmalan2012
/ December 9, 2014Me and mine will not stop clamoring for equal justice, so please do us a favor Corporal Burlingame and leave us now. You bring no light nor do you have cogent arguments or helpful examples. Everything you write is racially tinged tripe.
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Anonymous
/ December 10, 2014The essence of bigotry is the willful and dishonest condemnation of groups or tribes because of the sins and flaws of a minority. Equal justice under the law is still a goal far away.
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