Summation (Part 2)

In response to a really stoo-pud (IMNSHO) ignorant and self-centered comment on someone else's blog, I wrote this comment. It's a decent summation of where I was, both physically and metaphorically, during last week's trip:

I live in an area that is, on the surface at least, predominantly white, middle-class semi-rural/pseudo bedroom-community-suburb.

25% of the students in my son's school are Hispanic. They are nearly invisible in the community EXCEPT in the Police Blotter, the headlines, and "gangs." [White kids travel in "groups;" Hispanic kids travel in "gangs."] A lot of them come to my library to study, use the computers...and yeah, goof off. Sure, there are a lot of morons. There are a lot of non-Hispanic morons, too.

OK, so I'm a little fragmented tonight because I just spent a week serving on mission trip with 60 teenagers, teaching them not to become morons. I hope. Part of our group ate in two different urban soup kitchens, once for dinner Wednesday, once for lunch on Thursday. I learned two words in Ojibway and found out some fascinating info about ... stuff from a well-spoken woman with a great deal of pride in her heritage. We also met a man who called the lot of us out, asking if we were "yuppies" on vacation, sight-seeing among the homeless as a lark. He had every right, and in spite of that harsh-sounding introduction, he affirmed what the teens were doing, going to far as to tell one that he could tell she "got it" because he could see it in her eyes.

I met a woman whose adult son was beaten up last January with a sewer pipe and after spending 8 hours crawling home, has bankrupted his family with the medical bills: she was at the soup kitchen waiting for a "handout" for the necessities for this month. She could not have been more upbeat in spite of this. So was another woman who was waiting for the first time ever in a soup kitchen...at age 50. Mortified? Yes, but very cheerful in spite of that. I saw grandmas with their grandchildren, telling them to "eat up those vegetables!" I saw a blind man carrying all his earthly belongings in a backpack.

Part of our mission was with children. We met a crew of 9 children in one family; there is another on the way. We're pretty sure one of the kids in that family is diabetic, untreated. They were, actually, the best-behaved, most well-spoken children of the week. We met ten-year-olds who can do outstanding gymnastics (no expensive equipment required to jump around, you know), one of whom is completely deaf in one ear--they all have smiles that could rock your life and scars on their bodies and minds that could break your heart. I met a woman who has single-handedly raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the poor in her town, and washes the feet of vagrants on a daily basis. [I'd add that she is currently raising money for a children's home/orphanage that will be arranged in households rather than 'wards' and will also have its own school, park, rec center, etc. Let me know if you're interested and I'll tell you where you can find out more.]

One of the other groups talked to a woman who was homeless because when she got leukemia she lost her job because she couldn't work, which meant she lost her insurance, and within months, after selling her possessions piecemeal to pay for rent was evicted and moved into the Salvation Army shelter. [whew--Can you say vicious circle?] She was--at the time of her diagnosis--a practicing pharmacist and just about to go to Julliard on a full scholarship.

Any guesses how many of these people were black/white/Hispanic? Does it matter? They are all people. Would you want to sit in an emergency room with your feverish-for-the-fifth-straight-day child and be ignored for hours, whether or not you have insurance or speak English? Would it make it more fun to know the whole waiting room was looking down its collective nose at you because you don't belong? What, exactly, would you do for a seriously ill family member, whatever your economic status??

Part of the deal with being poor in this country is having to face people who, consciously or not, think poverty is a character flaw.

Poverty is a circumstance, NOT part of your personality. Most of the people who are poor in this country remain poor because of the stigma of poverty. It's HARD being poor in ways that people who have never been destitute can never understand. I certainly can't, not fully. For that failing I am profoundly grateful and also profoundly aware that there, but for the grace of God, go I.

Yes, I was a little incensed, and a pretty tired, too.