Beautiful Pedagogy…Foxfire Style

A bit of inspiration for all of us trying to stay grounded in our big fight over public school education and working toward a better society for everyone.

Click here for information on Foxfire

And here for the Foxfire magazine

Thanks to Lew and JoBeth for telling me about the NY Times piece…

Jails, Prisons, Incarceration Rates, and Public Cost

I wrote this in response to a story in our local paper about a proposed new jail that would cost approximately $100 million when all is said and done. But the issue is a significant one for everyone in our country – I’ll try to add some hot links to this later so you can access the reports I used to gather information.

New jail “critical”? Let’s look at some facts…

International and national rates of incarceration
Bear with me readers, it might not seem immediately clear why a new jail in Athens-Clarke County (or any other place) is not necessarily what’s critical for our community, but at least by the end of these comments we will have more to consider as public citizens than we do with a narrow-visioned and short-sighted argument for a bigger facility to house those who have become enmeshed in the criminal justice system.

The United States incarcerates more people – and the highest percentage of its population – than any other country in the world. At the beginning of 2008, the U.S. had 2,319,258 people in federal, state, or local jails/prisons; China was a distant second in the world with 1.5 million people incarcerated; Russia in a distant third place at 870,000 people incarcerated. In a surprising twist, countries our government and public often points fingers at for human rights violations are far behind the U.S. in incarceration rates. According to statistics in 2007 and 2008, the U.S. was incarcerating a stunning 760 people per 100,000, Iran was at 222 per 100,000 people, South Africa was at 329 per 100,000 people, Russia – 626 per 100,000 people, Saudi Arabia – 178 per 100,000, and China – 119 per 100,000. What about countries we consider allies and comparable regarding human rights policies? In 2008, Canada incarcerated 116 people per 100,000 and France was at 222 per 100,000 people. Sweden, perhaps not surprisingly, was at a very low 74 people incarcerated per 100,000 people in its population.

The U.S. hit a startling figure in 2008 with 1 in 100, or more precisely, more than 1 in 99.1 people in the country incarcerated with the state of Georgia consistently ranking near the top for incarceration rates in the United States. In 2005, Georgia was ranked 2nd highest when 1,021 people per 100,000 were incarcerated, and according to 2007 data, Georgia had a rate 21% higher than the national average of incarcerated adults per 100,000. Just for those of you wondering, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma are always among the top of the incarceration list as well.

Even more shocking than the high percentage of our country’s incarcerated population is the racial and ethnic differences within those numbers. At mid-year, 2008:
a. 727 White males were incarcerated per 100,000 White males
b. 1,760 Hispanic males were incarcerated per 100,000 Hispanic males
c. 4,777 Black males were incarcerated per 100,000 Black males
d. 1 in 355 White women aged 35-39
e. 1 in 297 Hispanic women aged 35-39
f. 1 in 100 Black women aged 35-39

In 2008, a shocking 1 in 9 Black men aged 20-34 were behind bars, and 1 in 15 Black men over the age of 18 were behind bars. This evidence points to serious racism in our country’s incarceration rates, intersecting with classism given that approximately 90% of all people of all races being arrested are living below the poverty level at the time of their arrest.

At what cost?
Readers can ascertain the human, familial, and social costs of the above facts themselves. Here I will focus a bit on the financial costs that have skyrocketed. Between 1987 and 2007, for example, states’ increase in spending on higher education was 21% while the increase in spending on corrections was 127%. In 2008, $1 in every $15.00 of states’ budgets of discretionary money was being used for corrections, and in the state of Georgia, every dollar spent on higher education equaled 50 cents spent on corrections. There is no doubt that in the nearing $100 billion industry of corrections, public priorities such as education, healthcare, parks and recreation, transportation, infrastructure, and so on have suffered.

Studies have also found that child support and restitution payments become almost nonexistent when someone responsible for such payments is incarcerated. So, it seems that we put people behind bars, take away their ability to work and earn money to be responsible for their debts, take away their ability to work and earn money and pay taxes into an increasingly small pool of money, and make it harder for them to find work after they are released because of the stigma of having served time in jail or prison. Even for those people less inclined to concern themselves with the social and moral ramifications of incarceration, everyone can certainly see the extreme economic cost to every single taxpayer and person in our country.

Our local tax dollars

For SPLOST 2011, voters will be asked to approve an $80 million bond sale to pay for the jail expansion and the following November they will be asked whether to pay back the debt with future sales tax revenue (about $20 million in interest). That’s approximately $100 million to make room for even more than Georgia’s already high numbers of people incarcerated.

On the other hand, a mere $40 million will be requested for an expansion of the Classic Center – an investment that would reportedly create “700 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs, and bring $6.6 million into the community annually.” Wow – what could $100 million do for Athens-Clarke County? Surely there are other “big-ticket” items that could generate jobs for our neighbors and community friends who don’t have any prospects right now. Could another big project mean 1,400 construction jobs and at least 400 more permanent jobs?

Experts have said that rather than asking for taxpayer dollars to pay for corrections, it would be better public policy to invest taxpayer dollars into things that are going to transform the economy, such as education and diversifying the economy. In Clarke County we are furloughing teachers and asking families to foot the bill for long and expensive school supply lists. Other counties are cutting field trips altogether and anything else that seems non-essential. If we want to keep kids in school and prepare them to be the innovative leaders we need tomorrow in Athens and far beyond, it is absolutely essential that we not consider a $100 million project to incarcerate more of their family members now and more of them in the future. We could use that money to stimulate our local and regional economy, ensuring there is work for all of us in the community now and in the future. Ensuring work and legitimate economic opportunity will surely result in a decrease of need for a new jail. And we could use the saved money to engage our youth in powerful ways – helping them see education beyond the four walls of school and inspiring them to see how they can be positive change agents in our society. That will take field trips, of course, and lots of other innovative practices that schools don’t have money for now.

Tough questions for Clarke County and others around the country

Given that the increased number of people being incarcerated is not correlated to an increase in crime, but rather change in policies governing admissions and lengths of stay in jails/prisons; Given the horrific differences between the rates of incarceration depending on race and socioeconomic status; And given the evidence of a skyrocketing jail/prison population and an exponentially increasing bill for housing and caring for incarcerated people, it is absolutely critical that taxpayers ask local, state, and national governments some tough questions:
1. What are the county/state statistics on race/ethnicity and incarceration?
2. What are the county/state statistics on socioeconomic status and incarceration?
3. If those statistics are alarming, how does the county/state explain such differences in incarceration across races?
4. If those statistics are alarming, what is the county/state actively doing to prevent the incarceration of Blacks and Hispanics at such high rates?
5. How are zero-tolerance and three-strikes policies impacting the admissions and lengths of stay in jails/prisons?
6. What is the loss in potential local and state tax income for every person incarcerated?
7. What is the cost in relation to child support and retribution payments for every person incarcerated?
8. What are the statistics regarding recidivism and an overall decrease in crime for every person incarcerated?

A new jail, housing more people, will cost Athens-Clarke County far more than the $100 million dollars that will simply get a physical building. The real cost in dollars and cents, as well as the cost to our local public priorities, has surely not yet been calculated.

*Statistics and other information gathered from The National Institute of Corrections, The International Centre for Prison Studies, The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, and The Pew Center on the States.

Creative wills to make money – know your rights:)

She stopped me in the parking lot of a convenient store and popped open her trunk, “Does your little girl like Barbie?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“But look, it’s a great little basket – you have a sand bucket and shovel, some Barbie stickers and paper for writing. Cute, huh? Eight bucks.”

“Hmmmm…we really don’t need it.”

“Five bucks.”

“Okay. I’ll take it.”

I’m from a place where creative ways for a head of a family to make a buck are used by most people I know. Cutting someone’s grass, shoveling some snow, selling make-up, selling left over prescription pills, cutting hair, setting up a flea market booth, having a yard sale, fixing a car, repairing a roof, making and selling jewelry, taking someone’s picture, cleaning someone’s house, giving someone a ride for gas money, betting on a horse, playing pool, grooming someone’s dog, collecting aluminum cans, standing on the corner with a pizza advertisement, working at a food pantry to get the leftovers. You name it, I’ve seen it done, and done a lot of creative stuff myself to make money. And those were in good times.

Now times are less than good – and people have doubled and tripled their creative efforts to make money. I had never been stopped in a convenience store parking lot to buy a cute bucket for kids, nor have I ever seen so many yard sale signs, so many crafts laid out in front yards with “for sale” signs on them (I saw a really cool wooden clubhouse for kids in a yard that had been handmade – but it would have never made it back to Georgia), so many cars for sale in driveways, furniture sitting out with signs on it, and on and on and on and on and on.

It never ceases to amaze me how much hustle people have in them when the cards are down, how they do what they need to do to get food on the table and the rent paid, and how people shift money around from person to person, family to family to help others get food on the table and the rent paid.

My great uncle works in a food pantry and brings extra food to my grandma and her brother – he told me about all the “strangers” suddenly coming for food, not the usual folks who tended to be older and on social security drawing very small monthly checks. “It must really be bad,” he said.

Indeed.

And I think of the Barbie bucket I bought in the parking lot and the signs – dozens and dozens of signs – advertising items and services for sale. Hustlin’ we call it in my family – hustlin’ to make a buck – and so rarely does that hustle happen in the official economy, that one that is above ground, above the table, counted in government statistics and weekly reports. It seems to me more people are hustlin’ out in the open when they used to be more underground. But the underground economy is sagging too, so the creative efforts are coming out from everywhere. These are folks who have either rejected the official economy because of the devastatingly low wages (I mean, really, does anyone think you can feed yourself, much less a family, on $7.00 an hour?), bullshit red tape (have you applied for jobs lately? nearly everything – even foodservice – requires online applications), humiliating drug tests (does anyone really think that someone who smokes a joint on the weekend should not be allowed to cook a hamburger on Wednesday?), or have taken up hustlin’ as a second or third job (should it really take two or three jobs to live a modest life?).

But they know their rights, and they know they have the right, and the responsibility, to make money for rent and food, so they do it. And I also know that if the government could tax them on their Barbie bucket sales out of their trunk, it would. And that $5.00 sale, with a cost of items at at least $4.00 would leave a $1.00 profit, a .30 tax, and .70 left for her hustle. Not quite worth it…unless of course .70 is exactly what you need to buy that loaf of bread that will feed your kids half the week.

Reminds me of a verse from a song – Know Your Rights by The Clash:

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don’t mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Day Two: More Strikes, and Some Activism

Hayden came home from the first day of testing and seemed mostly fine – she had a dance recital rehearsal and seemed content to put 100% of herself into dancing, so I thought things had gone fine.

Things looked even better when at 6:00 this morning I realized Hayden had slept all night, but they quickly fell apart.

“Mommy,” sniffle, cry, cry, “I don’t wanna go to school today.”

“What is it honey?”

“My stomach hurts.”

And so on and so on.

Right before 7:00 (when the bus is going to pull up) she tells me, “The test is sooo long and sooo boring, and we have to wait for EVERY SINGLE KID to finish, and it’s sooo long…”

and the best part:

“…and one reading part was so long and I didn’t like it, so I just didn’t read it and just guessed at the answers. I’m sure I got ‘em right though.”

“I’m sure you did sweetie…”

7:00

“Hayden’s not feeling well, so she won’t be riding the bus this morning.”

“But they have their big test today,” the bus driver tells me.

“I know.”

7:15

Hayden decides to write a letter to Governor Sonny Perdue (and plans to write one to Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton). She uses colorful markers and five pages (I’ll make a pdf of it at some point and post it here).

7:45

I am being very patient with Hayden and really listening to her. But I tell her that if she doesn’t go to school today, they will just make her take the test when she goes back to school.

“I know mom, but it will be a make-up test and there won’t be so many kids.”

Ahhhh….she has the whole thing figured out already, and she’s only been through one day of testing.

8:00

I’m getting closer to convincing her to let me drive her to school – but mostly because I’m starting to feel anxious about the meetings and other work waiting for me at the office (just being honest here…)

8:15

The phone rings.

“Where is my little friend?” Hayden’s teacher asks.

“I’m trying to convince her to come to school,” I say, then give the phone to Hayden.

Hayden tells Ms. Keller all about her letter to the governor, and Ms. Keller asks Hayden to include the fact that she doesn’t like the tests either. Hayden smiles and looks at me. I can see she’s ready to go – perhaps she just needed an ally from school.

“Stephanie, if she’s not here before 8:30 they’ll keep her in the gym [until the end of testing]“

“Okay. We’re on our way.”

We jump up, grab our things, and run out the door, pulling up in front of the school at 8:28. Hayden gives me a high-five, holds onto her letter to show her teacher, and tells me she’s going to kick the CRCT’s butt.

While she’s at school her teacher tells her about a website where you can submit a letter to the governor online. Hayden’s pumped. Before she goes to bed she dictates the following to me and we send it to Governor Perdue:

Dear Governor Perdue,

Please stop the CRCT. It is boring. You may think that it helps us but it doesn’t. You made it happen so make it STOP!!!

My friends Avery, Emma, Mason, Anna, Naiya, De’Andrea, and Wendolyn and Jimena and all of the rest think that the CRCT is very, very, very boring. And we had to practice for many, many days, and we shouldn’t have practice because we would see it on the real day!

Some of the test is really easy, but all the answers on the test might seem like they’re right, but they’re not. If you had kids, would you like to make your kids do a test and they’ll be tricked, and then they’ll be against you about the test? Because you would like it and they wouldn’t?

We should be learning about the earth, and how Earth Day started – and by the way, Happy Earth Day! And I think you’re a great governor.

So are you with me? Or against me?

I think that the CRCT is unstoppable, but I know that you will help us.

All you want to know is are we doing good in school? You should go to Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School in Athens, Georgia to see how we are doing for yourself.

Thank you for letting me write this note to you.
I wouldn’t have done it without you, and I liked writing it.

Love,

Hayden Jones

P.S. I go to school at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School in Athens, Georgia. My principal is Dr. Dunne, my teacher is Karen Keller, and I’m going to tell everyone in my class and maybe my whole school about this letter and about being against the CRCT. I hope you come to visit us.

Rockin’ the Vote! New voters, critical literacies, and K-12 education

The energy is pervasive – conservatives and liberals alike are just buzzing with constant chitter chatter about debates, advertisements, polls, pundits, and SNL.

We keep hearing about historic numbers of new voters being registered across the country (check out this video from Free Speech TV) and this seems to be the perfect time to inject our K-16 education system with some real political education. If every public education student could leave high school understanding the fundamental philosophies (social and economic) of different parties in the U.S. and feeling a sense of urgency regarding political engagement, I’d say we would be heading in the right direction. No wonder we have several generations of politically apathetic folks (including my own generation and many dear friends) – we have nearly erased real political education from K-12 education since WWII, leaving millions of people feeling things must be “fine” the way they are, so why bother?

My first grader went along with me to register new voters over the weekend – the final weekend to register in Georgia – and she had a ball. I made sure to give her the lecture about what “nonpartisan” means and that she should not mention either candidate to anyone. Instead she created tables of “registered/not registered” and made tallies to represent folks’ responses to us. She also made posters and hung them up pleading, “Please Vote,” and paced back and forth singing her ever-changing song that included lyrics like, “Please vote and help our country be happier, help us save our charities, help us be a better country…” and on and on. She loved having a real audience – something we can make happen for kids everywhere…

What could kindergarteners and first graders do in their schools? How can we inspire them to not only pay attention to current social and economic issues but also to think deeply about various “solutions” offered to us through candidates’ perspectives?

Here are some ideas off the top of my head that might be fun in various k-12 settings:

-Critical readings of television advertisements: What is the purpose of each campaign’s ads? How are they positioning one another? How are they positioning American voters? Are they talking about issues? Distracting from issues? How would students re-write those advertisements?

-Collect newspaper and magazine articles, Internet videos, etc. to share during “show and tell” (or similar sharing times during the day). Get students talking about these things every day.

-Research voter registration strategies by different groups and come up with new strategies for a local push for registration even after this election (there will be more elections folks!)

-Graph new voter registration state-by-state, then compare that to the turnout on Election Day.

-Research “early voting” rules in different states and compare them, thinking about issues of equity and access.

-Research “election day voting” in different states and compare the rules, thinking about issues of equity and access, including people who are in jail and/or people who have served their sentences.

-Brainstorm, more than one time, the reasons why it’s so important that people vote – AND – why so many people have decided not to vote in the past.

-Create brochures, films, email messages, speeches, posters, songs, artwork, and other texts to motivate people to vote in this election – and in the local elections that will also be coming up soon.

-Research any other issues or candidates that will be on the ballot in November and construct texts to advertise those issues beyond the Presidential Election.

Have Fun and let’s Rock the Vote starting with our youngest future voters…

Rich read aloud chapter books/working-class stories by Barbara O’Connor

I discovered Barbara O’Connor this summer and have zipped through three of her young adult short novels – all of which I would read aloud to children in the early grades. Hayden loved Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia and Taking Care of Moses and I read Moonpie and Ivy on my own (reading aloud takes so much longer than reading to myself…). Each of these three books are richly contextualized in the daily lives of working-class and poor characters while none of them are overtly about social class. You won’t find the more typical “overcoming adversity” stories here, but rather nuanced narratives of love, desire, loss, grief, anxiety, anger, friendship, and all the other complexities of living as humans. Hayden and I love the characters – it’s rare to find a book for children with tattooed big-hearted men, aluminum-can collecting dads, or mothers who have reached their mothering limits within a context where everything costs more money than she has and no one nearby can help much. But such characters fill the pages of O’Connor’s stories, and I have enjoyed them immensely. I’ll likely seek out her other books as well…

Cool things happenin’ everywhere…826

My dear friend and colleague Lane Clarke at Northern Kentucky University sent an email about this story from NPR on the 826 in Brooklyn. I’ve heard and read about 826 before, but somehow it got wrapped up in the sticky webs of my mind and I had nearly forgotten about it completely. I love the concept: really cool, kid-enticing storefront (spies, superheroes, etc.) that mark the entrance into a really cool, creative space where kids read and write. Love it.

Testing Time Again…A modest proposal for change

I was in a kindergarten classroom this morning where children are not allowed to make any noise for two and a half hours each day for three days for fear of disturbing the testing classrooms next door. Instead of their usual greetings, sharing, mingling during their creative projects, and moving about the room – the way kindergarteners and other students need to do – they are watching videos. Instead of engaging in rich curricular work, they sit silently at tables.

Kindergarten is not tested in this school.

But the kindergarteners are. Their experiences are yet another one of the “unintended consequences” of a high-stakes testing regime in our country. And they know the “big kids” are taking a “big test” and everything needs to be silent. So the kids taking tests can’t think of anything but the tests – and the kids supporting the “silence” for the test takers can’t think of anything but the tests.

More “collateral damage” done by the billion dollar testing machine wreaking havoc in our schools and on our future as an educated, engaged democracy.

We know tests are biased and advantage students from English-speaking, White middle-class and affluent homes.

We know schools and teachers have narrowed curricula to focus explicitly on the high-stakes test-preparation areas of reading and math often leaving behind science, social studies, language development, fine arts, physical education, and project-based experiences.

We know children vomit on testing days, teachers have insomnia, and principals are stressed to the max.

We know children, teachers, principals, and parents cry when a score comes back only 1 or 2 points below proficient.

We know test-preparation has dumbed down curricula and bored our students (and teachers) to death.

We know so much  more…

WHY DO WE KEEP DOING THIS?!

I modestly propose three steps toward change:

1. Find colleagues and community members to read and discuss Collateral Damage

2. Contact your local, state, and federal representatives and encourage them to read Collateral Damage (perhaps we could even buy an extra copy to send out to folks – or photocopy the first chapter and mail to them)

3. Start a local, grassroots campaign to “End High-Stakes Testing and AYP Sanctions”

Find some others concerned about the same issues:

No NCLB

Susan Ohanian

Anti-NCLB Legislation

Awesome Anti-NCLB merchandise

and it rains…time for critical inquiry

I have never been so happy to see, feel, and hear rain in all my life. My windows are being pelted with droplets, the leaves on the trees are dancing wildly, and I am smiling from ear to ear. When news programs claim one day that “experts” say the greater Atlanta area has 3 1/2 months’ supply of water and then the next day those same “experts” say we are already down to 81 days’ worth of water, what is one to do but panic?

How does the ol’ saying go? The mother of innovation is necessity (or something like that, no?)

Well, we certainly need water. So where is our innovation now? Or do some people still hold onto the hope that a magical spring will be discovered to replenish our lakes?

It is time to conserve.

It is time to imagine.

It is time to be innovative.

It is time to be critical.

And what a perfect time to engage students of all ages in interesting critical inquiry work around water.

Wouldn’t it be great if students researched a community’s water usage and plotted the usage alongside size of family? Size of home? Size of household income?

Having lived a number of times as a child without running water in the house, I know for a fact that folks struggling to pay the water bill are likely to conserve and reuse water supplies in the home. It has been said before, but I’ll ask it again here, could we learn valuable lessons from people with humble means about stretching resources, conserving resources, and living in ways that are more eco-friendly?

Now there’s a great critical inquiry: What is the carbon footprint of a family with a low income level versus a family with a high income level?

but back to water…

Who is using all our damn water???

Could students learn about and work toward promoting climate-appropriate landscaping versus the kind that needs constant watering?

What about swimming pools, fountains, and other privately-owned luxuries that slurp up water supplies? Now that would be an interesting mathematical investigation: How many gallons of water are used in the greater Atlanta area (or any metro area for that matter) for private swimming pools? If those private pools were not filled in late summer, at what levels would our major lakes be now?

And what a great ethical inquiry too: The Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing millions of gallons of water from north Georgia downstream to save the mussels in Florida. When wildlife and humans both need water, and the water supply is greatly diminished, who gets the water?

How Should We Work Toward Social Change? An Angry Commenter Pushes Me…

A comment was sent to me about the hospital letter and it is the closest thing to hate-mail that I have ever received. The more usual comment/email I get is glowingly complimentary thus I wasn’t sure what to do with this particular post!!! Though the writer was passionate in her expression of disgust towards me for writing the letter about my experience, she did raise a couple issues that might be important for readers to consider as I work through them myself. She claims that the worker had a right to freedom of speech, that I should have stopped to “educate” the worker regarding my experiences and views that opposed those she was espousing, and that I should not have sent a letter to her supervisors but instead handled it with her personally.

I’ll briefly respond to each of these issues below, then write about what all this might mean as we work toward a more socially-just way of being in the world:

Freedom of speech: This is tricky territory isn’t it? When does my “freedom of speech” become diminished as a result of the professional expectations of my job? How, or does, freedom of speech get played out differently in one’s work life and in one’s private life? I haven’t given enough thought to these questions to offer any insight here, but I do know that as an educator I do not see it as my “freedom of speech” right to denigrate groups of people who are supposed to be served by the educational system.

Stopping to “educate”: African American folks often complain that they are constantly expected to “educate” White folks about their racist ways, even when they were presumably unintended. Some people take on this position happily while others steer completely clear of it. Perhaps working-class and poor people should also be expected to “educate” middle-class and affluent folks about their classist ways – even if they are presumably unintended? I don’t believe this is always possible, nor always the best route to take, but I’ll offer some thoughts here:
1. On a better day, I might have pushed back a little and (too) politely asked, “Why do you say that?” or “I actually disagree with that,” because I do those things on a regular basis. But I was in PAIN, exhausted, and more than anxious to just simply get out of the hospital and get home. I didn’t have it in me in that moment – and there are many other moments when I don’t have it in me either.
2. I completely agree that personal interactions are an important way to work toward changing racist, classist, sexist, etc. beliefs and behaviors. But such change is not likely to happen in a 5-minute one-time talk with a stranger. At least a letter to the facility will put the issue on their radar and perhaps create opportunities for more “talk” about the issue to be ongoing and productive rather than a one-time shot.
3. So, I guess, I believe that it takes lots of efforts on lots of levels (interpersonal, institutional, private, public) to work toward a society that is filled with people who respect one another and act in respectful, non-judgmental ways.

Don’t go to the supervisor: Would the commenter suggest that this is true if the worker violated me directly (shaming me for being on Medicaid) rather than indirectly? My guess is no, at least my advice to anyone who is personally violated by a worker in an institution that is supposed to be caring for citizens would be to approach the worker’s supervisor to register a complaint. So…how is it different when the listener of offensive comments does not directly belong to the group that is being overtly offended? Does the listener have the right to complain? Ask for an apology? Go to a supervisor?

Here’s what I think: Different experiences are differentially “offensive” to me as a person, and differentially offensive to others as well. I have experienced thousands of interactions that are blatantly classist – some against me, others against me indirectly, and still others that were much farther removed from me personally. Sometimes these experiences make me feel so powerless in the situation that I simply can’t respond in the moment – and those are times when after-the-fact letters, complaints, conversations, etc. may be the only recourse. Other times the experiences are so enraging that I can’t help but lose my temper in such moments. But, most of the time, the experiences are somewhere between those poles and I make decisions about which offensive comments to essentially ignore, which ones to register in my mind and decide not to patronize the business any more, which ones to “talk about” with family, friends, and colleagues afterwards, which ones to push-back on in the moment requesting that the offender reconsider her/his comments, and which ones to take-on beyond the offender.

On my spectrum of offensive, had the woman in the hospital stopped the bantering when I tried to wheel myself out of the office, I would have likely ignored it or talked to friends, family, and colleagues, but little beyond that. It was the persistence of the comments even as I was trying to politely excuse myself that pushed me to take-on the issue in a broader way. I was not in a position to “handle” this issue with the woman personally, and feel very strongly that this is an issue that is much bigger than me and the woman in that office. It is unfortunately an issue that impacts millions of people’s lives daily and therefore should be talked about, cared for, and responded to in public, private, and institutional ways.

What are the best ways to work toward change?

My favorite answer – it depends.

Sometimes it’s interpersonally, sometimes it’s publicly, sometimes it’s through writing, sometimes it’s through relentless pushing-back, sometimes it’s through revolt, sometimes it’s through teaching, sometimes it’s through kindness, sometimes it’s through anger, sometimes it’s through sheer desperation. But it’s always through passion and persistence.

Positive Responses from Hospital

I received two phone calls this morning from representatives of Athens Regional Hospital. They were each genuinely concerned about the experience I had at the hospital and vowed to make a change, including conducting sensitivity training through their Human Resources department. Each of them said that such comments are never appropriate, but particularly inappropriate in the context of Athens Regional Hospital in Clarke County.

Kudos to Athens Regional for taking a stand against classism and racism in their health care facilities.

And for the rest of you out there – silence is complicity. Speak out – do something to make a change.

peace,

stephanie