Thursday, February 25, 2010

Poor

From Citizen K.'s blog, eloquence from Jesse Jackson:

Most poor children are neither black nor brown, they're white and they're female.Most poor people are not on welfare, they work every day. They work in fast-food restaurants, they clean hotels, they drive cabs, they do their labor in the dark, they're aides and orderlies in hospitals, they're cooks and janitors at schools, they keep other people's children, and ultimately cannot afford to take care of their own. Often they work in the football and basketball stadiums, selling the soft drinks and refreshments. But they are without health insurance. And they get sick too...

4 comments:

  1. I've been sick w/infection now for almost 3 weeks. Spent over 8 hours in emergency room and never got seen, found alternative place, got two prescriptions for anti-biotics, neither worked. Am hoping it just goes away.......no other alternative. And I have minimal health insurance through the state. First appointment I could get to be examined is April 9th.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ever read "Nickle and DImed"? Says it all about the working poor in the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is nothing that so infuriates me as the ignorant statements about how lazy poor people are and how they don't work.

    I don't know anyone who works harder than poor people.

    Love, C.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ima, so sorry to hear you're under the weather. Hope you feel better soon.

    Tara, I haven't, but you're not the first to recommend it!

    Foxessa, I was poor for many years, just barely managing from paycheck to paycheck, working multiple jobs, with children and an often unemployed husband. It was exhausting to the bone. At one point, I needed a root canal and crown and had no $, so I went to a community dental clinic, which was THE most humiliating and painful experience of my life. I could go on and on here.

    I am on-my-knees grateful for the changes that have occurred in my life so that I can claim that life as a part of my past, and not my present, but not a day goes by where I'm not aware of how painfully close to it all of us are....

    ReplyDelete