Sale Cereal
Posted: January 13, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: democrat, ghetto, middle-class, plush latina, poverty 18 Comments »There were two people in front of me in line at the Starbucks by my house: one, a stocky, stump-of-a man, the other, a plush, I-bedazzled-my-iPhone Latina. I looked at the patterned taupe and gunmetal tile, and traced the edges with my eyes until the barista called out.
“I can help whoever’s next.” Which was me. I walked to the counter.
“Do you guys have for-here mugs?” I asked, slinging my messenger bag to the front of my chest, and pulling out my brown, leather wallet, the one my students told me only balding men should own.
“Yeah, what did you want?”
“Perfect,” I said. I was going to stay for a couple hours and start on a story I’d been flirting with since the week before. “Can I get a grande black coffee?”
“Yeah, it’ll be $1.85.” While she went to fill the cup, I opened my tri-fold Geoffrey Beene and pulled out my blue, Chase debit card. She set the steaming coffee on the counter between us.
“Did you want a receipt?” she asked, as she confidently swiped the plastic.
“No, it’s fine, thanks.”
She bit her bottom lip first, then lifted her gaze to my unassuming face. When she started looking at me softly, like I was some sort of oft-beaten puppy, I knew what was coming.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, “but your card’s been declined.” I offered a solution.
“Huh. Want to try it again?” Unsurprisingly, nothing changed, save her face, which only contorted more.
“Weird,” I said. The steam tauntingly danced on my cheeks. “Let me go check with my bank and figure it out.” I walked to a table, leaving the coffee, and pulled out my computer. After entering my username and password, my statement appeared on the screen.
“Available Balance: -$10.41,” it read.
Post-grad poverty is a haughty, heavy-handed, love-hating asshole, because it reminds you of a few things: your years studying Dostoevsky and Brueggemann, while enjoyable, have left you surprisingly unmarketable; often, you can’t afford coffee, let alone anything but the sale cereal; you’ve got to stop guessing how much money you have left in your account.
Luckily, I had positive fifteen dollars in savings, which I immediately transferred.
“Available Balance: $4.59.” I smiled: nice try, Chase bank. I walked back to the counter.
“Funniest thing,” I told her. “It should work this time.” I returned to my table, coffee in hand.
A month ago, I was talking to one of my students at lunch. He was freeing a pre-packaged, rectangular piece of pizza from its decidedly hazardous plastic wrap. He gave me his apple, which he did every day. “Every good teacher needs an apple,” he explained the first time he handed me one.
“How was your night?” I asked, taking his trash so he could start eating.
“Good,” he said. “The power went, so it was dark.”
“Oh, no way! I didn’t hear about that on the news. Was it out all over National?” He chewed the cheese, pseudo-sausage, and bread-ish crust of his lunch.
“Huh uh. We couldn’t pay the bill, so it just shut off,” he said, nonchalantly, and kept chewing.
“Oh,” I said. “Does that happen a lot?” He replied without hesitation.
“Yeah, like once a month.” The bell rang, and we fist-bumped before he walked away.
“See you after school, bud.”
“Alright, then.”
For my middle-class friends—the ones who have snuggled into comfortably paying, socially respected careers—the post-grad years of scraping by, of wrangling coins for groceries and beer—become cutely nostalgic. “Remember when we’d eat Ramen all the time, and could only go out during happy hour, and got clothes at Target?” Now sipping $60 bottles of wine and donning designer jeans, these years become testament to their ability to do it—the whole poverty thing—as if it’s some sort of game, some trial-by-fire, a stepping stone to real, adult life.
My problem is that, for many, it’s not seasonal: the lights go off every month for years, the cards are always declined, pulling on those mythical bootstraps isn’t really an option. Aside from the whole I-want-to-get-married-someday thing, this is probably why I’m a democrat, because I work in the communities that are supposed to benefit from trickle-down economics. Here’s a little secret, though: they don’t. They’re stuck, and not because they lack motivation, but because they haven’t been afforded the same opportunities for success. Poverty preys on their prayers.
I was on a first-and-last date a while ago, and when I told him where I work, his reaction was telling.
“Oh, that’s, like, really ghetto, right?” No, I explained: it’s National City, and it’s beautiful.
You are in a place, time and position that you can see that my article is accurate. I give this to you to use for good. Jews are FORBIDDEN by Torah from proselytizing those of other traditions. So even if I were desirous to do that, I would not.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ecorebbe/id18.html
You are such an awesome person. Keep up the good work my good man
It’s funny how our class and privilege betray us when we’re not expecting it.
Paul asked, “What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?”
Even if we don’t boast (which is so frowned upon), the superior feelings we harbor toward lower class people betrays the fact that we boast inwardly, and feel that we are somehow, intrinsically better than them. The discomfort we feel when we are around them — these all betray the truth about how we feel about ourselves, all a subtle form of boasting and pride.
Good column Todd, but the political slant at the end I disagree with. Certainly you are free to choose a party for a myriad of reasons, but I am responding to what your blog is specifically addressing. Personally, I am a Republican because I am against the current, entrenched status quo and am a proponent of authentic reform (in a variety of arenas) based on merit. But where in particular? The education system. Education is the greatest institution within which people – who possess the motivation that you mentioned – are “afforded the opportunities for success”. But this upward financial mobility, which nearly everyone aspires to, is largely dependent on the very quality of the education a person has access to. Yes, the academic evidence keeps coming in (reinforcing our own subjective experiences) that valuable teachers do make a critical difference in life and its experiential quality. But the sad irony is, as hinted in this column (below) by self proclaimed liberal Nicholas Kristof, is that most “progressives” – those who proudly say they are the defenders of education – are the very ones who are the obstacle to real educational change. One of the three main special interest groups that democrats, a bastion of the “progressive”, are beholden to are the unions. The democrats support with voice, money and power anything the teacher’s unions espouse and do. And it is the self serving, insulated teacher unions which maintain the status quo and block reform; reform based on merit that would, once unleashed, elevate and attract a whole new wave of excellent teachers. Sometimes people choose a side with those who talk the most about certain problems, issues and challenges. But sometimes, sadly, that’s all they do…is talk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/opinion/kristof-the-value-of-teachers.html?src=me&ref=general
Gijo–
Thanks for the thoughtful response. It’s incredible to see people engaging my stories, and pushing back on my positions; it’s in this dance that truth can surface, I think.
Here’s another (not-so) secret: I’m no political analyst. I need to do more reading before I’d really feel qualified to offer any concrete feedback. I’m admittedly naive in this arena, and am really just beginning to sort through what I think politically. I know that–given my orientation–I am unquestionably committed to the social policies of the democratic party. What I think economically, however, is just starting to take shape.
You’ve raised some really good points. I don’t love the idea of success based on merit, largely because of my present work. I’m in relationship with people who have struggled mightily for success, and I have looked in their tired eyes at the end of long days that reek of defeat. I’m also in relationship with people who have–by virtue of being born into socially mobile households–experienced precious little resistance to the pursuit of their dreams. In their cases, a little hard work does, indeed, pay off. I struggle, then, to use merit in the educational system as the basis for upward mobility, because I work with students who are hopelessly trapped in educational institutions that believe them to be incapable of anything remotely resembling greatness, even when they may very well be capable of much.
Which is why your argument is compelling, because–as you say–the reason you are Republican is because you believe it to be the way to establish wholesale reform of the labor unions that prevent these very schools from demonizing minority youth. Thanks for offering more to chew on, and I’ll keep reading, Scout’s honor.
Todd
Yes, I have always loved the metaphor of the “dance”. Still, it may be more accurate, though less romantic, to see it as wrestling. If we choose to believe it, God honored Jacob for “wrestling” with him – by crowning him with a new, timeless title.
In any case, I appreciate your humility, honesty, and “brutal” truth telling. I cannot say I will ever see perfectly eye-to-eye with your particular conceptual views, but I am willing to be in dialogue; to speak to you face to face (even if it’s a digital exchange).
My father is Hispanic, born from Ecuadorean origin. He has endless stories about his struggles, but it was those very personal events of his which motivated him to move beyond those experiences. After much dissatisfaction about his “lot in life” he arrived in the United States in 1963, and at once was presented the typical menial jobs that offered to keep him paying for requisite bills: washing dishes at dead-end eateries, parking cars for upper-class individuals. But it was all about his attitude. He never allowed himself to slip into a seductive mentality of “us” verses “them.” He never participated in the game of believing the victimology of race. He never viewed those “who had more” through the prismatic politics of envy. Yes, envy: one of the greatest emotions that engender unhappiness and hate. I grew up under his perspective, and it never included an ounce of poisonous envy, anger at “the system”, racial division or any sense of entitlement of a “better life” though he had made a home in a land of plenty. Thus, I grew up with. what I believe, is an authentic, Godly view of life: we are given, all, gifts and abilities to exercise. We should not nurture feelings that leads to jealousy and bitterness, even if we do not have. I was given the gift of seeing the world as imperfect, and recognizing that the only one who could change this was myself, especially in a free society. Of course, the (post) modern mind will rebel at the concept of a “free society (that is how one knows they have been thoroughly soaked in contemporary ideology). Nonetheless, regardless of the fashionable intellectual excuses on the present menu,
You state you do not “love the idea of success based on merit, largely because of my present work.” At the very least, you recognize this is an emotive response and concept based on subjective, immediate empathy for your fellow traveler. However, it is this very dissatisfaction that is the father of improvement. It is this very unhappiness that should move us to something different. If we as humans were all satisfied with our current position in life, would we move? Would we change were we all content? I think not. Pain can be a magnificent, if very hidden, gift, but only if we choose to receive it well – which I will admit, can be more uncommon than common.
I welcome the perspective that “life is unfair.” Accepting this can be an authentic blessing. Developing an ideology around making this truth untrue will be an endless war, and can easily lead to bitterness and deep anger. I have no problem with making life better for others. This is the calling that God has lifted us all to. But my view (and I hope my Lord’s as well), is that we will learn and grow regardless of our given circumstances. If we are only to be redeemed and whole if we enter the proverbial “middle class” (whatever that means in any given era), then we are on an endless pursuit of a seductive-but-unconsummated promise. In another truth-telling-period, that would be called…. a lie.
In any case, I offer to be an “alternative” opinion. I do not look to be an opponent, as much as a different view point. I think it is all too common when we surround ourselves with like minded people, communities and accolades. It is then that we lose touch with reality. So, feel free to contact me – as another perspective. And I will chime in (when I can) as I am just beginning to follow your personal and public …wrestling.
Gijo, you only see political implications at the very end? Poverty, overdrawn checking student checking accounts, class distinctions, stereotypes — there are political implications from beginning to end. I don’t understand any political perspective that doesn’t discern the political in those incidents.
But I see the balance tipped in the direction of the personal, but only tipped. Every story, every narrative, is permeated with ideology, though not necessarily partisan politics. Ideology and politics are quite distinct, except as they are used on a popular level. Growing up in childhood poverty left indelible impressions on me, political, ideological, and personal. As I am sure is true of you as well.
Thanks Ron. for balancing the above comments. For people who aspire to always see all sides of a question Republicans are so narrowly blinkered by their ideology as to lose all focus of reality.
Have you considered doing book reviews? I think the work is rather freelance, and can be done anywhere.
I’d love to, David, should someone offer me the opportunity.
Todd,
After reading this one, I know your parents have so much to be proud of. And so am I too. I can feel your strength coming across the page in writing. You have much depth and meaning because although somewhat still young, you have lived well and overcome and you can connect or bond well with your audience. This a quality of a n excellent writer. The more you write, the better you become. Writing, teaching in college, might be more fulfilling than preaching too.
What a great picture you paint in these posts. I could smell the coffee in Starbucks! LOL. Your writing is clear and the thoughts so well expressed. Thanks! What a pleasure to read. Reminds me somehow of CS Lewis’ way of writing. I have to add that it does not hurt that you write about deeply meaningful subjects, you describe San Diego as I remember it, you are a Christian from a conservative tradition and happily gay as well! LOL. LOVED the Presidents post!
God bless you. I look forward to reading your Blog.
You make an incredibly valid point. I saw a sign the other day that read “humans Republicans will fight for: homeless, teachers, homosexuals, fetuses” and it had homeless, teachers, and homosexuals were crossed out. I kept thinking of that sign while I was reading this post.
Technically, I’m a registered Republican, and it makes me really sad that these narrow-minded points are what the party has become known for, and it sickens me because not all Republicans are like that. It’s horrible that we don’t spend time fighting for others.
When you were talking about your student, it reminded me of one of the girls I worked with when I was doing fieldwork for my credential down at Hilltop High in Chula Vista. The poor girl religiously didn’t turn in her homework, and the teacher was about to get past the point of frustrated because the student just gave attitude whenever asked. I was working with the student one day because I taught a lesson on writing a business letter of complaint. I was trying to help her with what to complain about and asked her if there was something that the teacher misunderstood rather than did wrong. The student told me that that would work because the reason she couldn’t do her homework was because she had three younger siblings and had to take care of them while her single mother worked three jobs. She said that they only had a one bedroom house and her mom and her slept in the family room. When the students’ mother came home, all she wanted to do was sleep so the lights had to be turned off. Also by the time her mother got home her siblings needed to be put to bed. She was usually too busy to take care of them during the day to get homework done, so once her mom came home and the lights were out, she couldn’t do her homework at all.
I told the student to write her business letter of complaint about that. I then told the teacher what I had heard from the student and the teacher asked me to help her problem solve. We ended up founding something that worked where the student could petition to be enrolled in a 0 period so she could just come to school early and get work done while her mother was still home with her siblings.
It’s crazy how this story isn’t even unique in many communities in even California. It’s where they need people like you to help them find a way to succeed and be themselves in a situation and world that is stacked against to them. God’s hands are on your and your ministry and your passion for those who are marginalized in any fashion. I’m sure you’re such a blessing to them.
I love reading your stories! You make it like I’m there with you.
Just finding ‘ Too Thick for Air’… and I think I am in love…again. Off to read and share more.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=334393903238261&set=a.115969958413991.17486.114517875225866&type=1&ref=nf
I’m a former ultra conservative as far right as you can throw republican who has fallen to the “other” side- I’ve also been called a socialist at times… Some call me crazy… Either way, having been raised upper middle class as a child – then, through many varying circumstances and experiences (having a family and unable to afford healthcare – sitting in the ER, holding my sick baby- crying while wondering how I was going to pay for the visit, living through a car repo, wondering how I would feed my kids, pay the rent, etc etc… AND NOT because of laziness!!! And of course, watching my gay friends and family bullied and condemned to hell by many in the church) I woke up one day, and realized that most of my values and beliefs fall to the left… Either way, what I truly believe – is that the Ultra Right Conservative Church should stop blaming the system, stop blaming the government AND START making a difference- stop building mega churches, stop promoting people, buildings, and programs… stop building their own political infrastructure AND START building hospitals, schools, homes for the homeless and HIV infected patients… Evacuate the church and enter the places where the hungry, sick, poor and afflicted live…Yes, it’s time to go THERE. Those places we (those of us who were raised in the ultra right church) were told NEVER to go… after all, isn’t that where Jesus would go?!!! Oh dear… a mini soap box…
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