That Coat.....

I really don't care. Do u?

That coat. Of all the bad fashion choices. Of all the inappropriateness of the statement..... this is probably one of the worst. Wearing your heart on your sleeve? Why not wear it on your back? Why would you want a coat that looks like it has be graffitied anyway? 

I really don't care. Do u? 

On the back of a week where children and their parents have been separated at the southern border of the US, Melania Trump has worn a coat that has confused us all. It seems she has expressed all that we have been thinking that the Trumps have been thinking with one strange fashion choice.

I really don't care. Do u?

Well, actually, generally I don't care what people wear. It's up to them, however, some clothes do make a statement, and this one it certainly does..... but is our reaction to the coat diverting our attention from what is really going on? Is the shock over the bold statement written in what looks like white paint on the back of a coat distracting us from the cries of the children who may or may not re-united with their parents depending on what happens next... what rule change is next. 

I think that Melania Trump asks us all a valid question, which should challenge us all. As we stand and we point fingers, as we raise our eyebrows and tweet and rant and write blogs.... we have got to ask ourselves the question.... do we really care? 

The problems on the US border are so far away we can express our devastation from afar but we know we don't have to get involved. Even our own Prime Minister who rarely speaks out against Trump has said that the hostile environment that is separating the children has gone too far....

Hang on a minute. Hostile environment?

Do you care?

In the wake of the Windrush scandal, where people who have lived in this country for decades have been sent back to a home that never was a home, in the wake of the inadequate action taken to settle children under the Dubs scheme, in the wake of the fact that there are still people dying trying to cross the Mediterranean, in the wake of the fact that there are still many many people camping on the coast of France in conditions that we wouldn't believe and even contemplate..... Do you care? 

What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about this hostile environment where in the US children's cries are heard as they wait for the what next.... What are you going to do about this hostile environment that labels people as 'the other' so we can leave them in any conditions and danger that we want? 

Do you actually care? Or might that coat actually suit you too? 

I'm challenged that I am not doing enough. I am challenged that I sit in my study in suburbia and I write, but as I write I feel helpless, what can I do? 

The Joint Public Issues Team has launched a campaign to challenge the government's approach to illegal immigration which is leading to destitution, discrimination and distrust. The campaign challenges us to take action, starting by writing to our MPs. I'm going to do that when I have finished writing this blog. It seems like a tiny step, but I believe any step is a start. 

As we hear the stories from the US. As we read that ridiculous coat..... We should be challenged.

Yes I do care. Do you? 

“If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

James 2:15-16