Money, racism, and blame...
May. 13th, 2006 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverthorneThis is likely to be incoherent.
It's also possible I will piss people off. For this, I apologize. I'll be saying things that will get some hackles up.
It isn't directed at anyone personally--it is a reaction to things I have read and thought about from all sorts of sources--some of which I was pointed to by people on my flist, which is why I'm making the distinction. My reaction here is from years of watching the same thing over and over in different forums, not just here.
Like every opinion, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
I just hope it brings out some positive thought along with negative.
It must suck to be us.
Seriously.
We have access to technology, luxury items, cars, free education (even if the extras like books cost something), an open forum where we can say what we want and can even shut down dissenters if we know the technical/technological/legal means to do so.
Even those of us who are 'poor' have access to things like the internet and a cheap cell phone, as long as we shop carefully and make use of free services like the computer access at the local library.
Any one of us, if we are persistent and look at all our options, can get what we absolutely need, and often stuff we don't need but want anyway, because of where we live. Only in the most extreme cases of poverty and lack of networking and support is this not true. You scream loudly enough here, someone will hear you and help, even if only for a moment. Finding the help may be a pain in the ass and a long uphill battle, but it's there. Even limited, it's there.
Those of us who already have access to all these things, difficult as it may be to maintain, have nothing to complain about.
Yeah, I know--it's tough when you have a million bills and not enough of a paycheck. But guess what? Neither do I--not at ten dollars and fifty cents an hour I don't. And yet, here we are on the internet--me typing, you reading. The internet is a luxury--depending on what kind of connection you have, it's anywhere from sixty to two hundred dollars per month of luxury. That's a lot of food and gas, or at least some part of your rent. Same thing for a cell phone or PDA type device, including (or especially) the PDA's with wireless access. How much are you spending on that? How much do you really need it?
How in hell did you survive ten years ago when there really was no such thing, except for the rich and extremely rich? Do you remember? What about the folks in the decade before that?
Funny, they all seemed to do just fine, didn't they?
Since when did we all become so spoiled that instant communication is a necessity, and people throw fits over it when they can't have it? Or the internet? Or satellite TV?
I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to make more money, have access to more cash so that I can buy shit that I want but not necessarily need. But, you know, even at my level, I can afford what I need, if not everything I want. I know this. So when I start hearing from folks who are at least at my level of income or more start yowling about how 'poor' and impoverished they are, it makes me want to scream. You're spoiled, people. Suffering from entitlement issues and the 'gimme gimme gimme' mind set. Half the crap people say they need is really just crap they want. Why?
So that they can keep up with the next guy over.
Stop it, all right? It's not that important. All it does is feed into the whole nasty ball of 'bigger is better', which in turn feeds into the 'hike the prices up so we can make a profit', so that all of a sudden, there's this HUGE gap between necessities and luxuries, and the luxuries are toted as necessities that have to be paid for. For people who are even lower in the economic chain than me, it's not only annoying and disheartening, it's insulting.
I live with a person like this. I can't tell you how tiring it is to watch someone who has all the things mentioned above crying herself to sleep at night because she doesn't have enough money to buy more toys or expensive things. She's upset because she ran herself into the ground with fifteen separate credit cards--most of them used to buy even more toys...that are nice, but not needed. She did it to herself. We both have to live with it.
Thing is, we can still buy what we need if we're careful and don't get stupid. We can still pay all our bills--including the luxury ones. And yet...this isn't enough for her.
So, living with that, it gets even more tiring listening to other people start yowling. Even worse is when I start getting the 'white man's burden' speech. From people who have it at least as good as I do.
Excuse me...but when did 'impoverished' become a race issue? And since you're here on the net with me, with your own cell phone (by the way --I don't have one, because that's outside my limit of bills I can pay and still have back up cash in the bank), with a car that's likely in better condition and of a better make than my '98 Ford Escort, just how impoverished do you want me to believe you are?
And then you're sitting there yowling about 'white people privilege'.
Excuse me? (yet again).
Last time I looked, every race, if we want to get down to it, has rich and poor people. Regardless of skin color, there are those that live off the blood, so to speak of others, and those who are ground into nothing but the vaguest semblance of a human life. Oppression happens in every country--even the United States. Go visit a ghetto, a trailer park, a homeless shelter, an indian reservation, if you don't believe me.
While you're at each of those places, do me a favor and take good look at skin color. Yeah, in some places, a certain tone will predominate...but there will be other races there too. Including some of those 'white people' that are so privileged.
I can agree with several things--that it sucks not to have enough money to be comfortable, that life is more difficult for some than it is for others, that people slip through the cracks and suffer horrid, awful things, that people do nasty things to each other all the time.
But the race card? Is getting old. It's an excuse, no matter who's pulling it. It's no more correct for me to say 'those damned Mexicans are taking all the good jobs, and that's why after seven years at the same job, I'm still barely making what a MacDonald's employee makes, despite my skills,' than it is for someone to go 'It's all the white people's (or brown, or yellow, or red, or purple and polka-dotted) fault that my life is this way.'
Look at history. There is not a race on this planet that has not, at some time or another, subjugated not only other races, but less fortunate members of their own. The Big Bad Whites are just the most recent in history's annuals to do it in an obvious and far-reaching way.
Even the 'tribal' races, that tend to get over-looked nowadays in our haste to jump on the Rich 'White' People (what about the blacks, arabs, hispanics that are also rich and working with those awful White People? Are they above reproach because of their skin and nationality? Did the White People really brainwash those greedy bastards that badly? Do you mean to tell me all these OTHER people weren't able to think for themselves?), likely have old family histories where they can say 'yes, we went over there to that tribe's land, took everything, did horrid things, and destroyed those people.'
Just as with the issue of money--it isn't a race issue. It isn't a cultural issue. It isn't a nationality issue.
It's a human issue.
And until everyone--everyone can quit pointing fingers at others that aren't of their 'own people' and realize that? Realize that it isn't just one country, or one race, or one belief system, or whatever else you want to blame for the horrible things that happen, it'll keep going. Because if you hold onto that thought process, then it will always be about getting rid of 'those people over there and the horrid things they do', rather than taking care of a fellow human being.
It's also possible I will piss people off. For this, I apologize. I'll be saying things that will get some hackles up.
It isn't directed at anyone personally--it is a reaction to things I have read and thought about from all sorts of sources--some of which I was pointed to by people on my flist, which is why I'm making the distinction. My reaction here is from years of watching the same thing over and over in different forums, not just here.
Like every opinion, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
I just hope it brings out some positive thought along with negative.
It must suck to be us.
Seriously.
We have access to technology, luxury items, cars, free education (even if the extras like books cost something), an open forum where we can say what we want and can even shut down dissenters if we know the technical/technological/legal means to do so.
Even those of us who are 'poor' have access to things like the internet and a cheap cell phone, as long as we shop carefully and make use of free services like the computer access at the local library.
Any one of us, if we are persistent and look at all our options, can get what we absolutely need, and often stuff we don't need but want anyway, because of where we live. Only in the most extreme cases of poverty and lack of networking and support is this not true. You scream loudly enough here, someone will hear you and help, even if only for a moment. Finding the help may be a pain in the ass and a long uphill battle, but it's there. Even limited, it's there.
Those of us who already have access to all these things, difficult as it may be to maintain, have nothing to complain about.
Yeah, I know--it's tough when you have a million bills and not enough of a paycheck. But guess what? Neither do I--not at ten dollars and fifty cents an hour I don't. And yet, here we are on the internet--me typing, you reading. The internet is a luxury--depending on what kind of connection you have, it's anywhere from sixty to two hundred dollars per month of luxury. That's a lot of food and gas, or at least some part of your rent. Same thing for a cell phone or PDA type device, including (or especially) the PDA's with wireless access. How much are you spending on that? How much do you really need it?
How in hell did you survive ten years ago when there really was no such thing, except for the rich and extremely rich? Do you remember? What about the folks in the decade before that?
Funny, they all seemed to do just fine, didn't they?
Since when did we all become so spoiled that instant communication is a necessity, and people throw fits over it when they can't have it? Or the internet? Or satellite TV?
I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to make more money, have access to more cash so that I can buy shit that I want but not necessarily need. But, you know, even at my level, I can afford what I need, if not everything I want. I know this. So when I start hearing from folks who are at least at my level of income or more start yowling about how 'poor' and impoverished they are, it makes me want to scream. You're spoiled, people. Suffering from entitlement issues and the 'gimme gimme gimme' mind set. Half the crap people say they need is really just crap they want. Why?
So that they can keep up with the next guy over.
Stop it, all right? It's not that important. All it does is feed into the whole nasty ball of 'bigger is better', which in turn feeds into the 'hike the prices up so we can make a profit', so that all of a sudden, there's this HUGE gap between necessities and luxuries, and the luxuries are toted as necessities that have to be paid for. For people who are even lower in the economic chain than me, it's not only annoying and disheartening, it's insulting.
I live with a person like this. I can't tell you how tiring it is to watch someone who has all the things mentioned above crying herself to sleep at night because she doesn't have enough money to buy more toys or expensive things. She's upset because she ran herself into the ground with fifteen separate credit cards--most of them used to buy even more toys...that are nice, but not needed. She did it to herself. We both have to live with it.
Thing is, we can still buy what we need if we're careful and don't get stupid. We can still pay all our bills--including the luxury ones. And yet...this isn't enough for her.
So, living with that, it gets even more tiring listening to other people start yowling. Even worse is when I start getting the 'white man's burden' speech. From people who have it at least as good as I do.
Excuse me...but when did 'impoverished' become a race issue? And since you're here on the net with me, with your own cell phone (by the way --I don't have one, because that's outside my limit of bills I can pay and still have back up cash in the bank), with a car that's likely in better condition and of a better make than my '98 Ford Escort, just how impoverished do you want me to believe you are?
And then you're sitting there yowling about 'white people privilege'.
Excuse me? (yet again).
Last time I looked, every race, if we want to get down to it, has rich and poor people. Regardless of skin color, there are those that live off the blood, so to speak of others, and those who are ground into nothing but the vaguest semblance of a human life. Oppression happens in every country--even the United States. Go visit a ghetto, a trailer park, a homeless shelter, an indian reservation, if you don't believe me.
While you're at each of those places, do me a favor and take good look at skin color. Yeah, in some places, a certain tone will predominate...but there will be other races there too. Including some of those 'white people' that are so privileged.
I can agree with several things--that it sucks not to have enough money to be comfortable, that life is more difficult for some than it is for others, that people slip through the cracks and suffer horrid, awful things, that people do nasty things to each other all the time.
But the race card? Is getting old. It's an excuse, no matter who's pulling it. It's no more correct for me to say 'those damned Mexicans are taking all the good jobs, and that's why after seven years at the same job, I'm still barely making what a MacDonald's employee makes, despite my skills,' than it is for someone to go 'It's all the white people's (or brown, or yellow, or red, or purple and polka-dotted) fault that my life is this way.'
Look at history. There is not a race on this planet that has not, at some time or another, subjugated not only other races, but less fortunate members of their own. The Big Bad Whites are just the most recent in history's annuals to do it in an obvious and far-reaching way.
Even the 'tribal' races, that tend to get over-looked nowadays in our haste to jump on the Rich 'White' People (what about the blacks, arabs, hispanics that are also rich and working with those awful White People? Are they above reproach because of their skin and nationality? Did the White People really brainwash those greedy bastards that badly? Do you mean to tell me all these OTHER people weren't able to think for themselves?), likely have old family histories where they can say 'yes, we went over there to that tribe's land, took everything, did horrid things, and destroyed those people.'
Just as with the issue of money--it isn't a race issue. It isn't a cultural issue. It isn't a nationality issue.
It's a human issue.
And until everyone--everyone can quit pointing fingers at others that aren't of their 'own people' and realize that? Realize that it isn't just one country, or one race, or one belief system, or whatever else you want to blame for the horrible things that happen, it'll keep going. Because if you hold onto that thought process, then it will always be about getting rid of 'those people over there and the horrid things they do', rather than taking care of a fellow human being.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 04:25 pm (UTC)Yeah, I admit itd be nice to be able to afford comics again, or the sort of social life that would allow me to go out when and wherever I like...
...but I'm making progress paying my bills. I will not start another credit card [haven't had one since debit cards were created]. That the progress is slow rankles, but I have to admit it is progress just the same.
I too am tired of my race complaining about white privilege [although yes, in some cases it exists and is abused like the Duke travesty]. I had someone of my own race tell me it was hate speech to say "stop blaming The Man for your problems."
People hate and fear change; they will, in turn, hate those who try to bring about change.
But I'm still glad you said this. It contained some points it is good to draw attention to, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 09:25 pm (UTC)