Welfare and Privilege

Here's another article I wrote for one of my hall newsletters last year. It seems people enjoy that I'm posting these now. I'm good like that.

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I like Facebook. I use it a lot to keep up with friends and family back home, as well as for less useful and practical purposes (i.e. killing time and creepin’). It’s a great tool and one which I’m glad I can access. But it’s slowly becoming a stink-hole, isn't it? I can’t believe some of the crap I’ve seen come through my status feed. And it’s not just random junk generated by the ads, but junk which my friends seem to think is worthwhile. To wit: There are currently over 2.2 million people who are fans of the “Making Drug Tests required to Get Welfare” page. That’s nearly 200,000 more people than the largest “Support Same Sex Marriage” group. Awesome, right? Never underestimate the willingness of large groups of people to use their power in the worst ways.

I wonder — did it ever occur to these welfare-hating people that their whole argument is based on the one, flimsy, illogical assumption that all poor people are coked out of their minds as they stumble to their mailboxes to collect the free money handed to them by the government? Let’s forget that the vast majority of people choose not to use narcotics. Let’s also ignore the fact that drug tests don’t test for drugs like alcohol and tobacco (which cause more health and social issues across every class of person than do heavy narcotics). And finally, let’s choose to ignore the fact that the use of narcotics is a problem which transcends common definitions of social class. I’m sure that those of you who came here from “wealthy” private schools saw just as much drug use within your class as those of you who came from less affluent public schools.

The issue here is not that some (i.e. very few) drug users get free money... The real issue is that over two million people think it’s okay to discriminate against a whole class of people in our country simply because those people share the common, non-drug related characteristic of being poor. WTF?! “Well, Jim gets welfare so he must be super poor. And, don't you know, all poor people love shooting heroin all day long. I learned that from Fox News and the TV.” Meanwhile, your gramps and grams receive monthly Social Security and Medicare checks from the government (aka “welfare”) without having you join Facebook groups about them being likewise tested for drugs. And I guarantee you they take more pills everyday than do most moderate narcotic drug users. How else are they going to keep their diabetes in check, their hearts pumping, and their sex organs functional? The only difference, of course, is that we love our grandparents and wouldn't dare question their honesty and integrity when it comes to their consumption of the public dollar. Why can’t we seem to bring ourselves to have the same trusting care in the honesty and integrity of others who are going through tough times?

I don’t think the over two-million people who became fans of the drug-testing page are actually bad people who really, really hate poor people (though I’m sure some of them do). Rather, I think that they’re probably just people who haven’t taken the time to really think about their own social status deeply enough to realize that they’re more than likely privileged in one way or another. It’s easy to point the finger and make demands of welfare recipients when you yourself have never had to wonder how you were going to keep food on the table each month. It’s easy to demand drug tests of others when you know that you’ll never be in the position to have the same asked of you.

We make harmful generalizations about others when we haven’t yet taken the time to understand ourselves in relation to them. We need to be less willing to see the world solely through our individual experiences and opinions, and be more willing to see the world through the experiences of others. Walk a mile in their shoes, you know? We need to realize that sometimes we have privileges we haven’t earned and that we can’t expect others to pay a social cost simply because they haven't been so privileged.

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Stay Gold!

MMK

Droppin' Some Knowledge

I can't remember if we've ever posted a video of Norah showing off some of the words she knows. She's pretty with it when it comes to knowing what words mean and what different things are, but she's not quite there with articulating most things. She's getting there, though. I feel like any day she'll just bust out with full sentences and start saying words left and right.

Anyway. This is this afternoon after she woke up from her nap.



Sorry it's sort of blurry in some places. We're still figuring out our new camera.

Stay Gold!

MMK

For Great Aunt M

Great Aunt M -

thank you SO much

for the beautiful sweaters

you made for Norah!!!

We love and miss you!

Dear Kevin, Joseph, and Dus

This one goes out to all my Eagle brethren...

I'm such a proud Papa.

Stay Gold!

MMK

Before I Go to Bed...

Here's a new blog layout because I just can't seem to leave well enough alone. 

Also, I thought I'd share something I wrote this week. I write bi-weekly newsletters for my hall which are hung in the bathroom stalls on each of the floors. Their purpose is to provide the students with news and information about things happening in the building and around campus, but I also use them as a means to disseminate educational information related to the curriculum area I'm working with in my building during that educational block. The front page of each newsletter is always an article I write relating to one of these four curriculum areas (Citizenship, Healthy Living, Social Justice, and Academics). Those are the four areas we, as a department, feel that we can impact in students' lives while they live in the residence halls. 

I don't know why I haven't shared these articles before. Maybe I'll make it a regular thing.

Anyway. Here's the article I wrote for this weeks newsletter on social justice:

"I go to church most Sunday mornings. It’s something I look forward to and that’s usually a highlight of my week. Not only do I get to see some of my friends and sometimes eat tiny pieces of bread with a shot of grape juice, but I get to listen to my pastor do his thing and share his thoughts on a variety of topics. Sometimes he says something that fits exactly with something I’ve been thinking about or trying to articulate. That happened this weekend, so I thought I’d share some of it with you.

We, as people, tend to say and do a lot of stupid things. We say and do some smart things, too, but it’s the dumb things which people tend to remember. But that’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, besides being embarrassed, we’re justified in saying and doing whatever we want, really, because we have certain “rights” which allow us to speak and act freely. We can be as offensive or ridiculous as we want, in theory, because it’s our right to be individuals. I can swear at old ladies and babies. I can tattoo a naked lady on my throat. I can draw penises on every white-board and bulletin board in my hallway.** Its my right! Right?

Yes, I guess it is, sort of... But a “right” is not a “should”. We need to understand that our right to say and do what we want as individuals exists because of our membership in the larger society and culture in which we live. Any person who doesn’t understand that his or her individual rights have an effect on the community in which he or she lives has no real understanding of individual rights at all. If you think it’s the responsibility of your community to afford you certain rights, then it’s your responsibility to your community to exercise those rights in a way that shows respect for that community and the rest of its individuals. This means considering the impact that your words and actions will have on the community and its members -- whether or not they agree with you, relate with you, or identify with the type of person you are. We may not mean to be offensive or exclusive with our language or actions, but the reality is that those things may result from what we do and say. If we don’t want to be divisive and offensive, then that should give us pause for a moment. That should make us reconsider how we exercise our rights.

Unless, of course, we don’t actually care how other people feel and saying that we are just “exercising our rights” actually means that we only really care about ourselves and doing whatever we want to do. I hope that’s not the case. I am unwilling to believe that we’re willing or able to be so intentionally self-centered.

So what does this mean for how we choose to conduct ourselves? I think it just means that we should give the rights and feelings of others an equal amount of thought and consideration as we give to our own. It doesn’t mean we can’t swear and poke fun at one another. It doesn’t mean that fart and poop jokes can’t be laughed at anymore. It doesn’t even mean that we have to be super mature all the time.

It just means that we need to see that our words and actions have an effect beyond what we intend for them to have. If we have any hope to build a community where everyone feels comfortable and included, it’s essential that this be something we have and understand in common.

**Please don’t draw penises on anything. It’s dumb."

Stay Gold!

MMK