So, I opened my big stupid mouth on facebook and commented on a note from an aquiantince that was her reaction to the election. A lot of it focused on seflish people wanting rich people’s money. Now, as someone who works in a very poor community made up mostly of people of color, I was higly offended by this notion. A lot of my students’ lives right now are HOPELESS. Anyway, I responded, as eloquently as possible, explaining how when you work in a community where welefare is the only the thing that puts food on the table (if any) that it is difficult to just dismiss recipiants of welfare and other financial assitant programs as “lazy.” So I threw in four examples of my students and the lives they lead to show, no, not all people who use welfare are just in line for “handouts” and it is not always possible to simply pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Sometimes people are in situations through no doing of their own: case in point, female student in my program has a child because she was raped by her father. She gets welfare to feed her baby. Is she lazy?

So the real point is, this acquaintince of mine responded with that there was no need for “stories” and that I should retract what I said since she too worked with the poor and apologized for cateogrically calling them lazy.

To which I say is this. It is a neat little beautiful thing to be able to live in the shining white bubble that is a state university, to be getting a great education, to maybe have a job on the side to pay for your weekend binges or if you are somehow more “resiliant” your own rent, and call this a struggle while dismissing other experiences as stories that somehow have no place in “intellectual debate” because let’s face it, they make privileged people uncomfortable.

Well, to everyone who is uncomfortable with my stories: GET OVER IT. I am uncomfrotable too. But not for the same reason. I am uncomfortable because on the other side of town, rich white kids live in country club mansions and go to private school. I am uncomfortable because mmost of my kids’ only meal is the one they get at school. I am uncomfortable because I have high schoolers who didn’t know the earth revolved around the sun, didn’t know how many days are in a week, didn’t know how to add or subtract without their fingers, and didn’t know that no, a baby does not grow in your stomach, even though most of them have kids. I am uncomfrotable because the privileged would rather turn a blind eye to the rest of the world’s suffering than to admit than to admit that something is wrong, or even worse, to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Everyone should be angry. I know I am.