Putting this here, because, well, Facebook’s new platform now has this super uber angry-making and frustrating to NO end habit of eating posts we write if they are long posts.
I need to say a huge something. A HUGE something. Because you all need to know this.
And yeah, this does keep me awake at night. Lots of nights, not just because of my own situation, but the situation of many of my friends, and all who are marginalized.
Our economy is sadly designed so that those who are upper middle class, wealthy and filthy rich have it easy peasy, and can afford everything that comes their way, including staple expenses we all pay for such as groceries, medicines, vitamins, utilities, internet, healthcare, etc., but the rest of us, who are middle class, low income, poor, disabled, elderly, etc., are now being literally gouged—-each and every single month. Gouged to where many are homeless or incarcerated. Gouged to where many turn to self medication, drugs, and crime to cope and survive.
Our cruel pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Capitalist system is designed to literally leave out those who are Black, Brown, Indigenous, Disabled, Elderly, LGBTQIA+, Immigrant, and etc. Add Americanized Trumpified Evangelical Christianity to this mix, and yeah….it makes for a toxic systemic living hell that literally leaves huge groups of us behind. Woefully and literally behind.
The lower income you are, the harder it gets just to stay afloat each month. Many of us turn to credit cards to pay for some of our monthly expenses because what we get in income each month is not enough to actually cover all of our monthly expenses.
And with the pandemic, prices at the grocery stores and drugstores have risen sharply. Prices all around have risen sharply. The wealthy and rich can afford these higher prices no problem, but the rest of us…this is eating us alive. It’s eating ME alive.
If you are disabled and cannot work—like me—your Social Security and/or SSI is your only source of income.
Many of us also do not have a supportive family. I do have my mom and two of my sisters, plus my two caregivers who help me all they can, but they too are struggling. And the rest of my family ignore me. They. Totally. Ignore. Me. And see me as a bad person because of my Autism, my meltdowns and my struggles.
Each month I have had to rely on my credit cards to augment what I get from Social Security. They pay for my skin creams that I need, my vitamins that I take to still maintain a semblance of (somewhat) healthy, plus books, and recreational outings and stuff I also need just for my sanity, because let’s face it, we ALL need to have outlets to stem the day to day mundane in our lives—and we need those things whether we are rich or poor, sorry, but that’s the truth. Human beings thrive if we have lives that can be actually fun too. Not just us existing.
And to add to my mix, I now have end stage stage five kidney disease, and have been on dialysis fort three years now. I am also Autistic, by the way, and have lifelong Complex-PTSD trauma from just how most have misunderstood my Autism and have treated me as lazy and just a walking bad behavior instead of a person with a different and disabling neurotype, because of all of my sensory triggers I have had my whole life. Because of all of my stims. Because I am still utterly FASCINATED by things like shiny hair. I STILL love seeing how the light plays in shiny hair, and I still call them AQUA SHINES. Just like I did in fifth grade.
It has ben an achingly LONELY LIFE of me having very few friends and allies because of all who misunderstand and villainize Autistic people as broken and in need of fixing and curing. We Autistics are not monsters. Get to know us and you will see that. Get to sincerely KNOW us and I promise you, you will see that.
Contrary to popular belief, not all or even a lot of poor, elderly disabled and homeless people are trynna game the system.
Most of our homeless and poor are those who have fallen through the cracks due to a woefully inadequate and antiquated mental health care system,
a woefully inadequate and antiquated physical healthcare system,
a woefully inadequate and antiquated judicial system that seeks to punish rather than heal people,
systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hate, and every other kind of hatred and bigotry….
and an immigration system that also discriminates and punishes rather than seeks positive outcomes for those who are, in the vast majority of cases, fleeing their homelands to escape the poverty, hunger, and violence they are sadly encountering in the places they used to call their home, but isn’t anymore.
And our neglected inner cities and impoverished rural areas.
It is maybe 1% who are “just lazy and who ‘game’—abuse—the system.” Read that again. Most people are sincerely struggling—and more and more of us are struggling beyond what we can bear now.
When one has to work 2 to 3 or even 4 jobs just to pay rent, that ain’t okay.
When even our social safety net is designed to keep us trapped in fear and poverty, a never-ending cycle of fear and poverty, that is not okay.
Yes, Joe Biden, along with Bernie Sanders, AOC, and many other progressives in Congress are trying to re-do and expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—and it is about freaking time. They are also trying to make these programs less hard for us to get, and less hard to be able to keep our benefits.
But so much more needs to be done to eradicate the poverty and suffering of marginalized folks. It can only be done if minds and hearts are opened, and we ALL rethink our outdated, antiquated, negative, bigoted, and racist ideas.
And let us start by dismantling those systems that got us all here in the first place—really and truly dismantling those oppressive harmful systems. Every. Single. One. Of. Those. Systems. And building a whole new system that prioritizes the full equality and dignity of humankind and our earth over corporations and rich people.
Thanks for listening.
