The Little Prince said, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” With deep respect towards
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, I would like to add that what is essential is also invisible to the statistics, to PowerPoint presentations, to panels and debates, to press releases, and to similar forms of so-called “communication.”
In fact, there are things that can only been seen with the heart or are will not been seen at all, regardless of how much information you can accumulate about that issue.
For example, almost 20 percent of Colorado residents face food insecurity, that is, they lack daily access to enough quantity and quality of food to feed themselves. However, only 3 percent of Colorado residents living above poverty line believe hunger is a problem in this state.
This kind of statistics should not be read with the eyes or the mind, but with the heart, because the heart sees beyond the cold numbers and into the faces of the people.
According to Kathy Underhill, Executive Director of Hunger Free Colorado, the main challenge HFC faces is that people simply do not believe hunger is a reality in Colorado.
Another example: According to the Nebraska Family Council (NFC), there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of human trafficking in Nebraska, because neighboring states adopted severe anti-trafficking laws, but not Nebraska, attracting traffickers to that state.
During the past 18 months, local authorities and the FBI investigated 26 cases of human trafficking in Nebraska. However, according to Al Riskowski, of NFC, the real number of cases in this state is many times higher, probably in the thousands, affecting mainly young Latino men working in rural areas and young Latinas brought against their will to major cities.
However, Nebraskans do not recognize human trafficking as a problem affecting their state. “Our biggest challenge is people’s incredulity,” said Riskowski during a recent interview with local media outlets.
I saw the same pattern applied to national statistics. A few weeks ago several nonprofit organizations revealed that, based on new census data, there are 17 million families in the United States living in poverty, and 7.5 million people in this country live in extreme poverty. Those numbers were promptly dismissed by media commentators and “experts,” but that does not mean those numbers are not real.
Recently, somebody taught me that statistics are used to separate our intellect from our ethical values, that is, they are a tool to satisfy our intellectual curiosity about a given social issue, without requiring an emotional connection with those affected by that issue. And without such emotional connection, we will do nothing.
Incredulity does not change what is actually happening and may even hinder any attempts to change it.
I am sorry I cannot offer any solution. I did not receive any divine revelation and I lack the political power or the financial resources to implement meaningful and lasting changes. So, the only thing left is to invite you to see with your heart.