Friday, August 19, 2011
Friday, August 05, 2011
Countdown To Being A Citizen: Again.
Since I have started posting on Facebook and Twitter the quotes of me being a citizen again, it's funny the responses I have gotten from those who know me. My father, Priest was like, where are you, in jail? My aunt, Kathryn was no better, she was of the same notion. An old classmate, Dyson, he too was of the opinion that I had done some hard time.
The reality is that when you are poor and underemployed or unemployed, you are in a prison of sorts. You are effectively sequestered from the "American Dream." The anti-social politics of the experiment of democracy has in fact like Prince would say, has become Democrazy. The quest of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is highly subjective. What that quest represents for me, which at present means paying my rent, having insurance for myself, some type of quality of life beyond having to beg to breathe, live, and eventually die another day (preferably one in the way distant future like 70 years off) would be drastically different from lets say someone born into Silver Spoons (yes that was a TV show indicative of the Reganomics 80s) or someone who in inherits poverty the same way some are born into privilege and wealth. When you are not an economic citizen in the United States in the 21st century, you instead are the socio economic American problem; at least to those who are in political and economic power. My experience is teaching me that no matter your educational status, if you don't have the money to pay your bills, you instead are subjected to a lower class status in our country. What is sad however is that our country, as "civilized" as we want it to be, has become cannibalistic in nature. The reason or desire to want to pay your bills, meet your obligations, whatever, doesn't mean a thing without a form of payment in hand. It's a cruel case of mind over matter. If you can't pay for X, then in the neo-conservative American formula of life, you simply don't matter. That's the cold bitter truth of the equation. If you don't have the money for the rent, you will be harassed, demeaned, and dehumanized, and subsequently problematized, possibly criminalized. Failure to have the money for your insurance be it health or car, categorizes you as a walking time bomb waiting to become an insurance company’s nightmare. There lies the problem. You have to be able to look for work. If you become ill or injured, you will rack up a plethora of bills. This in turn puts you so far back in the hole, that where you thought you’d reached the bottom, has now metaphorically become a financial bottomless pit. If you don't have health insurance, Michael Moore has shown us that you can, and will, be put out on to the street, regardless of the severity of your medical condition. For me, this has initiated a new level of compassion, I never thought I would have the capacity to demonstrate. That said, for me, this was where faith, logic, pragmatism, and quite honestly a chance to get even with the insurance companies, all converged, and I asserted a systemic moral right turn on the insurance companies. Having said that, the current class of politicians have shown us that if you don't have insurance, and cannot afford it, you really are not better off dead, but instead, to them, you should be put into a post industrial concentration camp: the military, or worse, prison. At least there you will get three meals a day, a health and dental plan, and of course, a roof over your head. Surprisingly, I’ve heard of strange tales in this economic climate. The stand out was the case of the $1.00 bandit. Here, an elderly man robbed a federal bank without a gun for a token $1.00 bill so that he could have a place to stay, food to eat, and at least get some type of health care. Yes, his liberty will be severely restricted, but never the less, he has forced the state to invest in him. And lets talk about this quality of life issue; because my quality of life, my prison, has not just impacted me, but also my son. There have been days when I feel we are cruising and then there have been days where I have said, he and he alone will eat, while I will just literally drink water and eat bread. Why, because my son is worth it. Still, there is nothing like going to bed with four different collectors on your mind. This is funny but still shockingly true. I would go to bed looking for the repo man to come at night to steal my truck, while wondering when the sheriff would come serve me with a set of eviction papers, while miricalizing (that’s praying to the Creator) for enough gas to make it to work so I could borrow money to make it through the next day. In a sick way, my financial imprisonment does in fact contribute to the economy. The question is which: the upper crust economy where the merchant is happy for my business, “Thank you for shopping at Crate and Barrel, we’ll have this delivered right away,” or the low brow class economy where the in articulate bill collector calls, or Larry, the cable guy, repossesses my car, while it is all televised on some crappy reality TV show. I mean seriously, when I think about the raced, gendered, and class politics of my prision, I really had to catch myself because I really saw the ugly in me creeping to the surface. When a woman called from the finance company threatening repossession of my truck if I did not pay the bill by X date, I began to challenge her. Through training and education, I could make some quasi-logical assumptions about the person’s ethnicity, gender, and class. In my mind I saw a heavy set, black woman, with limited education who was being paid to be mean in an attempt to extract money from me. Here’s how it happened:
Her,
Mr. Z I am calling about the 2005 x tr-re-ah.
Me,
I am he, and it’s called an x-tera.
Her
The reason I am calling is because you are showing 80 days past due. When it gets to this point, it’s only a day or so away from repossession.
Me,
Ok, I know that I owe, but repossession is a frightening word to me, I don’t have the money right now, I’m in the middle of a financial hardship/emergency.
Her,
Well why did you get behind?
Me,
I’d rather not go into that right now.
Her,
Well I’m just letting you know that repossession is possible.
Me,
You’ve said that, and I’m kindly requesting that we change the tone of the conversation. I know you have to get money from me, but you don’t have to berate me in the process.
Her,
How is telling you about repossession, which we can do, berating you. I don’t understand that. We are entitled to collect our collateral.
Me,
We? Our, collateral? The car is yours? With all due respect, I am going to pay for the car, but given the fact that I’ve already said that we are going through a real crisis, I need you to deescalate your collection efforts.
Her,
Mr.,
Me,
It’s actually doctor.
Her,
Well Mr.
Me,
No, I said doctor.
Her,
According to this contract, it says Mr., so I’m going to call you Mister.
Its’ at this point in the conversation where I really wanted to say, “Bitch (which is not nice, but then what follows ain’t exactly squeaky clean either), let’s keep it simple, because right now, there is a shortage of intelligence, so I am going to help you today. You are a fat-ass gorilla with a limited education who has been given a scrip, why? Because your handlers believe you lack any analytical ability. You are in an incubus of infection, working eight hours a day, being paid bananas to play a stereotypical sapphire, I get that. You have to eat, you have to feed your child. I get it. But were it not for this fucked up economy, and I were paying my bills in a timely way, you wouldn’t have a purpose for your company, you proudly represent. Your function for them, it would cease to exist. Lets do the math, as you work eight hours a day, and make maybe $11.00 per hour; I work only 4 hours a day making 45K per year, with holidays and weekends off, plus benefits, and I have upward mobility. That’s why I am called Doctor, and your stupid, fat, functionally-illiterate, bitch ass, will respect it!” Now of course I didn’t say that, but I felt it coming up, which is why I elected to disengage because even then, I know, that’s not where she wants to be, but it is, where she is, and if she had the opportunities and chances I had, there is a possibility she wouldn’t be there. This brings me to the last point: the mis-education of the African American little boy.
For me, right now, because I know the equalizing power of education, I am wondering if I will have the money to pay for my son's daycare that I know he needs so that he can have better life opportunities. If I don't do that, then he is subject to the public school system which I know for fact is drastically different from private schools. Public schools simply lack the sensitivity, the communicative skills, and the ability to engage African American boys. Instead, the school systems are taught how to problematize and criminalize them and to be blunt, I don't have the interest nor the time to continuously go to his school and play the role of the atypical African American parent who code switches, puts folks in check and on notice all the damn time. If I have to do that, then I need to home school. But again the quality of life when you are economically exiled to the island of the financially misfit, is nothing more than cruel and unusual punishment. Will you make it through the end of the day? Will you make it through the end of the week, Will you make it through the end of the month? If you don't, one of three things can happen: You could be dead.. You could be clinically mad... You could be in prison. But the reality is that while you are unemployed, underemployed, and/or in debt, you are socially disenfranchised and estranged from citizen in this country. You are in a sociological prison, some-days self-imposed, most days, societal; but you are still in prison. There is no time for good behavior; no time served. You are the prisoner.
The reality is that when you are poor and underemployed or unemployed, you are in a prison of sorts. You are effectively sequestered from the "American Dream." The anti-social politics of the experiment of democracy has in fact like Prince would say, has become Democrazy. The quest of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is highly subjective. What that quest represents for me, which at present means paying my rent, having insurance for myself, some type of quality of life beyond having to beg to breathe, live, and eventually die another day (preferably one in the way distant future like 70 years off) would be drastically different from lets say someone born into Silver Spoons (yes that was a TV show indicative of the Reganomics 80s) or someone who in inherits poverty the same way some are born into privilege and wealth. When you are not an economic citizen in the United States in the 21st century, you instead are the socio economic American problem; at least to those who are in political and economic power. My experience is teaching me that no matter your educational status, if you don't have the money to pay your bills, you instead are subjected to a lower class status in our country. What is sad however is that our country, as "civilized" as we want it to be, has become cannibalistic in nature. The reason or desire to want to pay your bills, meet your obligations, whatever, doesn't mean a thing without a form of payment in hand. It's a cruel case of mind over matter. If you can't pay for X, then in the neo-conservative American formula of life, you simply don't matter. That's the cold bitter truth of the equation. If you don't have the money for the rent, you will be harassed, demeaned, and dehumanized, and subsequently problematized, possibly criminalized. Failure to have the money for your insurance be it health or car, categorizes you as a walking time bomb waiting to become an insurance company’s nightmare. There lies the problem. You have to be able to look for work. If you become ill or injured, you will rack up a plethora of bills. This in turn puts you so far back in the hole, that where you thought you’d reached the bottom, has now metaphorically become a financial bottomless pit. If you don't have health insurance, Michael Moore has shown us that you can, and will, be put out on to the street, regardless of the severity of your medical condition. For me, this has initiated a new level of compassion, I never thought I would have the capacity to demonstrate. That said, for me, this was where faith, logic, pragmatism, and quite honestly a chance to get even with the insurance companies, all converged, and I asserted a systemic moral right turn on the insurance companies. Having said that, the current class of politicians have shown us that if you don't have insurance, and cannot afford it, you really are not better off dead, but instead, to them, you should be put into a post industrial concentration camp: the military, or worse, prison. At least there you will get three meals a day, a health and dental plan, and of course, a roof over your head. Surprisingly, I’ve heard of strange tales in this economic climate. The stand out was the case of the $1.00 bandit. Here, an elderly man robbed a federal bank without a gun for a token $1.00 bill so that he could have a place to stay, food to eat, and at least get some type of health care. Yes, his liberty will be severely restricted, but never the less, he has forced the state to invest in him. And lets talk about this quality of life issue; because my quality of life, my prison, has not just impacted me, but also my son. There have been days when I feel we are cruising and then there have been days where I have said, he and he alone will eat, while I will just literally drink water and eat bread. Why, because my son is worth it. Still, there is nothing like going to bed with four different collectors on your mind. This is funny but still shockingly true. I would go to bed looking for the repo man to come at night to steal my truck, while wondering when the sheriff would come serve me with a set of eviction papers, while miricalizing (that’s praying to the Creator) for enough gas to make it to work so I could borrow money to make it through the next day. In a sick way, my financial imprisonment does in fact contribute to the economy. The question is which: the upper crust economy where the merchant is happy for my business, “Thank you for shopping at Crate and Barrel, we’ll have this delivered right away,” or the low brow class economy where the in articulate bill collector calls, or Larry, the cable guy, repossesses my car, while it is all televised on some crappy reality TV show. I mean seriously, when I think about the raced, gendered, and class politics of my prision, I really had to catch myself because I really saw the ugly in me creeping to the surface. When a woman called from the finance company threatening repossession of my truck if I did not pay the bill by X date, I began to challenge her. Through training and education, I could make some quasi-logical assumptions about the person’s ethnicity, gender, and class. In my mind I saw a heavy set, black woman, with limited education who was being paid to be mean in an attempt to extract money from me. Here’s how it happened:
Her,
Mr. Z I am calling about the 2005 x tr-re-ah.
Me,
I am he, and it’s called an x-tera.
Her
The reason I am calling is because you are showing 80 days past due. When it gets to this point, it’s only a day or so away from repossession.
Me,
Ok, I know that I owe, but repossession is a frightening word to me, I don’t have the money right now, I’m in the middle of a financial hardship/emergency.
Her,
Well why did you get behind?
Me,
I’d rather not go into that right now.
Her,
Well I’m just letting you know that repossession is possible.
Me,
You’ve said that, and I’m kindly requesting that we change the tone of the conversation. I know you have to get money from me, but you don’t have to berate me in the process.
Her,
How is telling you about repossession, which we can do, berating you. I don’t understand that. We are entitled to collect our collateral.
Me,
We? Our, collateral? The car is yours? With all due respect, I am going to pay for the car, but given the fact that I’ve already said that we are going through a real crisis, I need you to deescalate your collection efforts.
Her,
Mr.,
Me,
It’s actually doctor.
Her,
Well Mr.
Me,
No, I said doctor.
Her,
According to this contract, it says Mr., so I’m going to call you Mister.
Its’ at this point in the conversation where I really wanted to say, “Bitch (which is not nice, but then what follows ain’t exactly squeaky clean either), let’s keep it simple, because right now, there is a shortage of intelligence, so I am going to help you today. You are a fat-ass gorilla with a limited education who has been given a scrip, why? Because your handlers believe you lack any analytical ability. You are in an incubus of infection, working eight hours a day, being paid bananas to play a stereotypical sapphire, I get that. You have to eat, you have to feed your child. I get it. But were it not for this fucked up economy, and I were paying my bills in a timely way, you wouldn’t have a purpose for your company, you proudly represent. Your function for them, it would cease to exist. Lets do the math, as you work eight hours a day, and make maybe $11.00 per hour; I work only 4 hours a day making 45K per year, with holidays and weekends off, plus benefits, and I have upward mobility. That’s why I am called Doctor, and your stupid, fat, functionally-illiterate, bitch ass, will respect it!” Now of course I didn’t say that, but I felt it coming up, which is why I elected to disengage because even then, I know, that’s not where she wants to be, but it is, where she is, and if she had the opportunities and chances I had, there is a possibility she wouldn’t be there. This brings me to the last point: the mis-education of the African American little boy.
For me, right now, because I know the equalizing power of education, I am wondering if I will have the money to pay for my son's daycare that I know he needs so that he can have better life opportunities. If I don't do that, then he is subject to the public school system which I know for fact is drastically different from private schools. Public schools simply lack the sensitivity, the communicative skills, and the ability to engage African American boys. Instead, the school systems are taught how to problematize and criminalize them and to be blunt, I don't have the interest nor the time to continuously go to his school and play the role of the atypical African American parent who code switches, puts folks in check and on notice all the damn time. If I have to do that, then I need to home school. But again the quality of life when you are economically exiled to the island of the financially misfit, is nothing more than cruel and unusual punishment. Will you make it through the end of the day? Will you make it through the end of the week, Will you make it through the end of the month? If you don't, one of three things can happen: You could be dead.. You could be clinically mad... You could be in prison. But the reality is that while you are unemployed, underemployed, and/or in debt, you are socially disenfranchised and estranged from citizen in this country. You are in a sociological prison, some-days self-imposed, most days, societal; but you are still in prison. There is no time for good behavior; no time served. You are the prisoner.
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