Bono: We Can Be the Generation that Ends Extreme Poverty

The last minute or two of Bono's NAACP humanitarian award speech is so powerful. Please watch this. He begins, "To those in the church who still stand in judgement of the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit with you for just a moment...."



Excerpts:


"I grew up in Ireland, and when I grew up, Ireland was divided along religious lines, sectarian lines. Young people like me were parched for the vision that poured out of pulpits of Black America. And the vision of a Black reverend from Atlanta, a man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job. These ideas travel, you know, and they reached me clear as any tune and lodged in my brain like a song, I couldn’t shake that...."




"I know that America hasn’t solved all of its problems and I know AIDS is still killing people right here in America, and I know the hardest hit are African-Americans, many of them young women. Today at a church in Oakland, I went to see such extraordinary people with this lioness here, Barbara Lee, took me around and with her pastor J. Alfred Smith – and may I say that it was the poetry and the righteous anger of the Black church that was such an inspiration to me, a very white, almost pink, Irish man growing up in Dublin."




"..to those in the church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Because whatever thoughts we have about God, who He is, or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house."








"God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered.












"God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives."











"God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor. And God is with us if we are with them."











"This is not a burden, this is an adventure."









"Don’t let anyone tell you it cannot be done. We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty."

THE ONE CAMPAIGN



*Thanks to Weekend Fisher for transcript.





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International Carnival Of Pozitivities - Edition 11


Be sure to see Steve Schalchlin's edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities. [LINK] It's issue number 11 and its filled with the stories of those living with or loving someone with HIV/AIDS. I was moved by this revelation from 2sides2ron's guest writer Robin Hope, who describes the joy and the struggles of adopting an HIV positive baby:

"The ignorance that still floats around is amazing . My daughter comes home from school and relays to me how some kids in her health class still believe that you will get AIDS just from being in the same room. Ashley wants to stand up and scream, but instead she screams silently, afraid of the repercussions if she were to disclose her diagnosis."