Morals are important indicators for a healthy society but not everyone can afford to have morals. 

We are so secure in our upstanding character that we forget that it is a privilege to exercise those behaviors. 

Thankfully you’ve never been hungry enough that you would steal so we can cast stones at the thief while the system increases their numbers by the second. 

We’ve never been pushed to commit vices so we can uphold our morals and bask in our righteousness. 

I’m not excusing lack of morals, i’m shedding light on the systems that erode people of theirs. We love to see people punished for breaking the rules no matter how nonsensical they are as the importance of regulations is in their enforcement not inception. 

Privilege makes it so we can mock those who are beneath us but never question why that is. But even as we mock them we do it laced with false concern and no real actionable steps. 

Oh it’s a shame that people are homeless and sleep on the street but you know what the real issue is? the drugs. for how can they not build a house with the 500 naira you spared them. that money should be put to better use instead. forget the cold, the sickness, the hunger, the rain, the scorching sun, the tattered clothes, the lack of access to clean water and good food as the problem is the crimes they commit. because they’re choosing to leave behind all the accessible jobs and free education given to them for a place on the streets where hostile architecture is slowly becoming the new normal. 

let’s leave the billionaires but raise our torches against the minimum wage workers because despite reality telling us we’re closest to homelessness we can aspire to be billionaires too if we dream big and work hard enough, none of which have accounted to the success of any billionaire. 

our morals tell us to look to those above us to tell us what is right while we bicker against ourselves. as long as we are not being affected by it it’s not really relevant. 

no one things it could be them until it is and you find yourself faced with the same lackluster society’s performative morals as your privilege has been eroded. 

Now would you steal to eat?