The wrong questions

I must say that I was heartened by the fact that MLK 3 was brave enough to actually enter the lair of the evil, illegitimate, racist, misogynist, hateful, Trump.  Even more so that he actually had a conversation with Trump, unlike others.   However I noticed that his quote demonstrates an area where people are asking the wrong questions, therefore getting the wrong answers.

King said, "We need to be talking about how to clothe people, how do we feed people.”

While I agree that there is a need to meet the physical needs of people, I think King has it wrong.   Or alternatively, expressed himself poorly.

It seems to me that the goal is not to "feed" or "clothe" people, but to create an environment where people are able to feed and clothe themselves.  It seems that we should be working away from dependence and toward independence, not the reverse.   Now, I'm not a huge Trump fan, but he has been pretty consistent on wanting to improve the economy so that all sorts of people will be able to provide for themselves.  Further, it seems that deciding that "we" need to "feed" or "clothe" people is inherently more demeaning and dehumanizing that allowing people the opportunity to provide for themselves. 

On a related note, one of the issues of the last campaign was allowing refugees to come to the US.

After watching a video of a young Syrian boy  a few months ago (as well as from 1st hand experience) talk about what he really wanted was a job so he could provide for his mother and siblings, I realized that we're asking the wrong question.

Instead of how many Syrians can we uproot from their homeland and relocate to the US, we should be asking what can we do in order to give the Syrians the opportunity to thrive and prosper in their homeland and build a better country for themselves and for the region.

Clearly, there will be instances where certain individuals are unable to provide for themselves and where certain conditions mean that it is necessary to relocate a refugee to the US, but having the default position that we must "feed", "clothe", and "provide refuge to" the majority of affected people seems to be coming from the wrong place.