engaged intellectuals

This post on Glenn Sacks’ blog supporting father-child relationships led me to Vanity Fair’s story Men Evolving Badly, a weak feminist attempt (by a man) to reassert and deconstruct the power of the penis among the super rich. Sadly, however, the writer generalizes this power to all men and does not engage with the class hierarchies in the U.S. My letter to the editor:

James Wolcott might claim to be a feminist given his perspective in “Men Evolving Badly” but he would be well-advised to step back and take a lesson or two in radical feminism. Just as he writes “The primary threat to the psychological well-being of most men (and women) isn’t sexual or pop-cultural but economic…” he reveals the limitations of his own class privileges when focusing his attention on the super rich. It may be true that the “odds still favor the penis-bearer” in the wealthy class, but take another look at the working-class and poor ranks in the U.S. and you might find another story altogether. Keep in mind the millions of men behind bars who were largely (90% or better) arrested during a time when they were living below the federal poverty level, and many because they had fallen behind in child support payments while struggling to keep a roof over their own heads. The “roof entry to the helicopter pad” is foreign territory within a context of deindustrialization and the feminization of working-class jobs where many men are lucky to find minimum wage jobs or day labor. Instead of focusing on the devolution of the narcissistic, power elite, take a walk through neighborhoods annihilated by the greed of corporations and financial institutions where fathers are playing soccer with their children in the street or crying behind closed doors because their wives left them, took the kids, and now they can’t afford child support payments. Radical feminism aims to end oppression of all kinds – you can’t look at privileged men in one class without recognizing the sufferings of men in another.

Policies that “mandate” a particular action are on my mind today, perhaps because I’ve crawled out of my conference-induced fog and I’m turning my attention back to the presidential campaign a bit. John Edwards (just love him) and Hilary Clinton both recommend “mandating” health insurance coverage for every American citizen - Barack Obama “mandates” health insurance for every child but not ever citizen.

What do mandates get us? What is the underbelly of mandates that might punish the very people who always need a little extra financial wiggle room? Let’s think about “child support.”

Picture this: A mom and dad argue a lot and finally one of them hits their breaking point. The mom decides to move out of the house with the child, and though the dad wants desperately to have custody of the child, the mother is awarded custody. Now the father and child are separated, but allowed “visitation” as long as child support is paid.

I didn’t tell you that both parents were working for minimum wage - but that’s a very important part of the story.

So now you have two separate single-headed households trying to make ends meet on minimum wage earnings (about $240.00/week take home). Out of approximately $1,000/month, each has to pay rent, buy food, provide clothes and food for the child when the child is with them, pay for gas, gas and electric in the homes, etc.

The court orders the dad to pay $480.00 a month in child support. That’s approximately 1/2 his income and moves the dad from poverty level living to well below poverty level living. He can’t pay his bills any more when he takes his weekly child support payment to the courthouse.

He falls behind in child support.

Goes to court.

His license is suspended (YES - this is one of the punishments for not paying your child support).

Visitation is suspended (YES - so now he loses his son too).

He tries to find alternative ways to get to work, but arrangements fall through.

He loses his job.

Gets further and further behind in child support (only 3 months can quickly be more than 1300.00 - a very heavy debt for this father).

He experiences depression.

Goes back to court because he is now 6 months behind in child support.

Goes to jail (YES - this is another punishment for not paying child support).

Dad is wrecked. Child is wrecked. And mother still doesn’t have any additional financial support that she so desperately needs for her son.

He didn’t want her to leave in the first place and cried on the phone almost daily trying to get the family back together, but she insisted it would never work. He wanted custody, but the courts would not seriously consider that.

Who does this “mandatory child support” policy help? Hurt? Destroy? Advantage?

Who are the dads (I say dads here because we rarely hear of “Deadbeat Mothers” but instead “Deadbeat Dads” - the derogatory way of referring to dads who don’t pay child support) who didn’t want to lose their families in the first place, tried to get custody of the child, then experience a rapid spiraling out of control of their life because they fall behind in child support payments?

Who are the dads who never feel the financial pinch of the hundreds or thousands paid for child support each month?

These “mandates” always seem to hurt the ones who have persistently been hurt by the economic structures in our society. In many working-poor families everyone loses when child support payments are mandated and policed by the state.

What will happen if health insurance is mandated? The same folks will be punished for their inability to pay the price of coverage and still maintain a roof over their heads.

La Misma Luna/Under the Same Moon This fabulous new film in independent theaters portrays the life of a young boy in Mexico living without his mother who has illegally immigrated to the U.S. I won’t give away any details, but bring your tissues and rally signs. It could make even the most conservative anti-immigration person reconsider dehumanizing laws that break the hearts and spirits of tenacious, driven, hard-working Mexicans. I haven’t yet used it with any of my courses but I will - and I will ask students to pay close attention to issues of language, literacies, and power within the intricate complexities of U.S.-Mexico relations. I will also ask students to consider the broader context of contemporary immigration around the globe and how capitalist economies and globalism is impacting social class relations beyond national borders.

Come on Mr. President…do you think a new initiative will disguise the atrocious failure of No Child Left Behind? Despite his (false) claims that Math and Reading scores are higher than ever, George W. Bush continues to search frantically for any potential success story in the realm of education during his administration. It’s time to face the facts, however, and those include:

1. The federal government has never made sufficient funds available to pay for its NCLB mandates in education leaving local districts and state bodies scrambling to pay the bill, often resulting in the elimination of art, music, PE, and other “extra” classes, field trips for children, classroom materials that could be used for hands-on learning experiences, and even in some cases eliminating faculty or support positions. Leaving local schools and states standing with the enormous bill for NCLB mandates is both unethical and unconstitutional.

2. Curricula (ESPECIALLY in schools serving many working-class and poor students and students of color) has been narrowed so much that students no longer have the option of receiving a well-rounded, rich education that can prepare them for being engaged citizens in a democracy. Even in “Math” and “Reading” students are merely being taught to take tests.

3. The testing frenzy is so out of control that even kindergarteners can be found in classrooms sitting at their seats with paper and pencil. For many kindergarten classrooms, long gone are “luxuries” such as recess, rest time, story time, dramatic play, and hands-on exploration.

4. Students are being pushed out of school so they will not bring a school’s overall score “down.”

5. Teachers are pushing every boundary possible, and even some outright “cheating” on tests to avoid the devastating results if a struggling school does not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

6. Teachers are told to “teach the ones who you think can pass” and essentially forget the others. Geesh…that sounds a lot like leaving children behind.

7. Even affluent suburban schools are finding it difficult to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) because their scores tend to be high to begin with and to consistently increase those scores every single year is nearly impossible. Thus, the testing frenzy and detrimental effects infiltrate all schools with teachers complaining, “everything is about the test!”

Don’t believe me? There are hundreds of publications about the detrimental effects NCLB has had on children, families, schools, teachers, administrators, budgets, test scores, and education. Here’s one of the latest.

No Child Left Behind is up for Reauthorization this spring. Let’s not continue to allow this Act that is designed for inevitable self-implosion to ruin educational opportunities for all children - and most of all for the children who have been underserved by the system for so many generations.

And Pell Grants for Kids is just another way to rape public schools of funding and give public funds to the private and faith-based sector. Yet another attempt to erode public education for all. Can we not see the writing on the wall?

(more…)

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.

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

I have deleted the original letter I wrote to the hospital to show my support for everyone who works hard each day to provide professional, respectful, non-judgmental health care to the citizens in and around our county as well as across the country. You know who you are - thank you for making this world a better place one interaction with a patient at a time.

The hospital did not ask, or even imply that they would like me to remove the letter from the Internet, but I have decided that their response was a positive, productive one and I don’t want future Internet surfers to make quick ongoing judgments about the facility based on my original letter.

Cheers

Education, Iraq, climate change, health care, the economy. These are all important issues in the upcoming presidential campaign, and what do they have in common? Class. The lived realities of social class impact, and are impacted by, these major campaign talking points. It seems that John Edwards is using social class (or rather, poverty) as a hub to organize the issues most important to his campaign whereas class (or poverty) is positioned more peripherally by others’ platforms.

Though I have not made a decision about which candidate I would like to see in the big game, I did find today’s Brian Lehrer show (WNYC) intriguing.

When asked about Welfare Reform and what was right and wrong about the policies leading to the end of welfare, Edwards restructured his response to talk about what is still wrong: folks are struggling to make ends meet. Whether they’re receiving government support or whether they are out working full-time, poor people living lives as, according to Edwards, “second-rate citizens,” and in a country where citizens are valued, this is simply unacceptable.

Edwards refers to Jason DeParle’s book American Dream a read that taught me a lot about the history of health care and welfare in the U.S. And though Edwards states that the economy will be stronger if poverty is eradicated in the United States (by means of, among other things, new and stronger unions, universal health care, and stronger education - whatever that might be) , he argues that the most important reason folks should be driven to work toward ending poverty is that it is the moral thing to do.

Will middle-class, upper middle-class, and the ultra-affluent vote to challenge poverty head-on because it’s the right thing to do? I wish that I thought I lived in a country where that would happen…