We work in hell...
I'm still growing up. That is to stay, I've never grown up. Let me tell you that I didn't get my first full-time job until I came to San Francisco in 2015. That's not a good record. I've worked many times and much of the time, but I never got paid my due. I volunteered a lot and did tons of Free Work that never paid the bills. I still have a lot to learn.Most privileged people have schooling, go to high school, go to college, graduate and get a job. I say this is for privileged people because most don't accomplish this. I know a lot of my friends went into the military after college and while some would say that's a job, it's definitely not the route they wanted to go. A lot of my friends have degrees but don't have a job that matches their skill level—or their debt. Many are stuck with jobs they hate or do just to pay the bills.
I never had to pay the bills... until I moved to San Francisco. After my grandparents died in 2016, I've been on my own—literally. No parents, no family, no support. Distancing myself from toxic people included those I once considered my relatives. But I am so much healthier this way. I have less anxiety, less stress and less self-hatred. Abusers come in all forms and it takes distance to recognize it.
Now I face the possibility of losing everything. I'm not good at ladder systems. I never get to the top. My childhood is proof of that. Every goddamn day I'm reminded at how close to the bottom I am. So many people fell off that ladder, some from way up high. They are clinging with slippery fingers on the few rungs they have before they hit the cold, cement ground below. And then there's the mud... the ever flowing, rising, putrid stench of the sewer-filled mud threatening to drown you at any moment.
I could quote all sorts of movies, “Sorry to Bother You”, “Parasite” and more. These films were made at a time of classism and wage poverty. It's still happening. We are constantly reminded of how frail this capitalist and classist society is. When only the few get rich and the rest are fighting for scraps, it's not hard to figure out a revolution is coming... and it will be bloody.
We normalize terrible things. We pretend it's normal to mistreat people, to abuse them and tell them it's not their place to complain, that they should be grateful for the miserable scraps they get (because why do they deserve better?). We leave the miserable low-wage poverty jobs for the immigrants and black people. There I said it. It's the truth. All the security guards working all-nighters, the warehouse workers, the caregivers, the low-wage scrape up the techie-created labor job peons: most are People of Color, Hispanic and Latino and Puerto Rican and Phillopino, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laos refugees, Chinese, Thai immigrants and people who are: NOT WHITE.
I'm talking about people working as: scooter delivery drivers, food delivery drivers, Uber/Lyft drivers, and other app-created jobs that rely on the low-wage and “independent contractor” positions that can never pay the bills. They have created a system of terminal poverty. The rich benefit from the services but the poor people supply the labor. How is this fair? It's a doomed pyramid scheme.
These haven't created jobs. They've prolonged poverty.
Most of the homeless on the street are People of Color. It's not a coincidence. Gentrification is a form of genocide. Displacement is a tactic in warfare.
All these things I see point in the same direction: homelessness, prison and eventually—death. How can I pretend I don't see what's right in front of me?
I never noticed it before. I didn't have to. Living in the suburbs of Chico was a very sheltered existence. We didn't see many black people. I hate to say it but it wasn't until Hurricane Katrina brought the displaced families to Chico, that we started to have residents who were People of Color. Now, of course, there are many People of Color in Chico and I'm glad. But I can't pretend the racism hasn't gone away.
I noticed the homeless. Sometimes I talked to them. But it was always at a distance. “Oh, well their lives are different from mine,” I thought. But I knew the truth. If it wasn't for my grandparents, I'd be there too. I'm not ignorant of the factors: abusive alcoholic parents, foster homes, group homes, institutions for “damaged” children... drugs, rape, more abuse. It could've been me—easily.
You expect people like that, people like us, to just get “a nice job”? It doesn't happen. The skills I learned and know today came from privilege.
verb
[ with obj. ] formal
grant
a privilege or privileges to:
English inheritance law privileged the eldest son.
•
(usu.
be
privileged from)
exempt (someone) from a liability or obligation to which others are
subject.
•
chiefly
historical
a
grant to an individual, corporation, or place of special rights or
immunities, esp. in the form of a franchise or monopoly.
--New
Oxford American Dictionary 3rd edition © 2010 by Oxford University
Press, Inc.
Computers? I had some exposure in the
institution I was in.
Having my own computer? Only from my
uncle, did I ever get a computer.
Classes for typing and computer
certificate? From a charter school that my grandmother enrolled me in
when I couldn't stand the hell of high school.
Resume writing came only from
experience and looking at other resumes online, which requires a
subscription to the internet. No way could I ever do this in a
library or on a library computer. They make it difficult for a
reason...
The rich people don't want the poor to
have knowledge. They delight in knowing there is always someone under
them, so they can feel superior. The working-class feel superior over
the poor but don't rise up because they don't want to lose the few
scraps they have. The poor are angry but every time they fight back,
they are jailed. Once you are jailed, you are stuck in the mud. Even
if you manage to put your hand on a ladder rung, your pants and shoes
are covered in mud.
I'm privileged enough to have had a
roof over my head, to have lived among the “rich”, to experience
the privilege of “the good life”. I know it's all so fragile.
Money doesn't matter to me, unless I need housing or to eat.
I don't want to live in a mansion. The
rich are cold and distracted. I don't ever want to be a rich person.
Their houses are always empty and filled with stuff that they have no
attachment to. Rich people's houses don't feel like home. Rich people
are only concerned with themselves and don't see or care about other
people. Rich people haven't suffered like the working-class and poor
have. Rich people don't have compassion because they never had to.
My traumatized life opened my eyes to
suffering and pain. I see it everywhere now. It's like something I
can't shut off. My grandmother was always so sensitive. I think she
went through something bad in her life too.
I don't want to become bitter and cold.
I want to connect with people and not be alone. I need something that
connects me to life and can't shelter myself too much. I don't want a
job that turns me into a monster. I can't work a corporate job and
pretend “everything is fine”. I always see the problems and the
glaring inequities around me. Most people are fine with ignoring such
things. They have their scraps and they want to keep them.
I want something more in life.
Why do we put up with hell to get so
little in return? What in society has changed us so that we expect so
much less of ourselves, of others and of society?
We don't want welfare. We want jobs. We
don't want to have to rely on disability but to be able to support
ourselves and have free healthcare—which would save a lot of jobs
and a lot of people on disability. We're not lazy. We're sick of our
hard work counting for nothing and being punished after we've worked
ourselves to the bone.
We're bitter and disappointed. We're
resentful and angry. We're killing ourselves and each other with
pills and guns and sometimes bombs.
Where has our optimism gone? What
happened to the change that was promised to us?
When we are confronted with the
failures and lies of our jobs, our living situations and of our
government, we turn angry and take our anger out on others. We are
not fulfilled in America. The government has turned our
dissatisfaction on us and made us hate each other and our neighbors
who are fleeing violence. We are fed the false promise of riches
while facing the ugly truth of poverty and made into weapons of
violence against each other.
This rise in homelessness is not a
coincidence. This rise in detaining, abusing and murdering of
immigrants is not a coincidence. This hatred of the “others” is
not a coincidence. This is all happening at a time when our civil
liberties are at risk, and the government we believed in is going
through chaos. This happens at a time when we are challenged with
evidence of the truth but prefer to believe in the “safe” lies we
are fed by those with interests apart from ours.
How can we go on like this?
I think of what my life will be like
ahead of me and I can honestly say that I don't have much hope. When
I see such injustice around me it does not make for “better times
ahead”.
Unless we rise up and fight against
this injustice, there is no hope.
#freehealthcare #civilrights #taxtherich #fightinjustice #abolishice #abolishcbp #nomorewars #nowarforoil #closeguantanamo #noprivateprisons
