February 2012

My weariness about the winter jacket is based on past experience; my children are not gentle or kind to their clothing. I’m not talking about the usual wear-and-tear – this isn’t about the frayed knee of a pair of jeans or the toe that pokes out the end of a pair of socks. I’ve been known to get a little twitchy about the 800th missing mitten, like anyone else, but I accept that kids aren’t always totally responsible.

This is more than that.

One of my kids woke up one day and cut the sleeves off of several of his shirts. Shirts that he ostensibly liked – he wore them often. Once he cut the arms off, however, he didn’t wear them anymore and he hid them in the drawer of his bedroom until we discovered them and asked him WTF happened. He shrugged and said, “I cut off the sleeves..” and had no further explanation.

One of my kids destroyed so many pairs of shoes – intentionally cutting at parts or ripping things or pulling off the sole – that we now refuse to buy any shoes that aren’t from Zellers. If he wants something fancier than the most basic, he has to use his allowance.

I spent a good chunk of time sewing pyjama pants for the kids, at their request, only to have one tear his apart and another insist on a waistband so short that he couldn’t even wear the stupid things (and I repeatedly told him that he wouldn’t want the waist that low and he kept insisting on it and I kept insisting otherwise and.. well, I was right but it didn’t make me feel better in the end to ‘win’ that one.) I also sewed them pillows with funky fabric that they destroyed in short order.

One of the kids has lost all of his clothes to parental control because of the sheer number of items he’s messed up by refusing to hang up or put them away, storing food in the pockets, and having plastic wrappers (with food residue on them) go through the dryer. Or for not changing his clothing – but pretending he has – so we’ve been left to ‘police’ it by knowing firsthand if he changed his underpants, or not.

Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been so grateful for the friends who have given us hand-me-downs (and, in some cases, brand new clothing) for the boys – so you might think I’d be more relaxed about this. After all, I didn’t have to pay for a lot of things. But, it doesn’t make it any easier to see things get wrecked the first time they’re worn or by small hands with scissors.

Nothing I say has any impact on this; I talk about how long clothes can last if they’re treated well. I talk about how, if something starts to rip, I can fix it (if I’m told it’s starting to rip). I talk about how, if we don’t have to buy the same item over and over again, we can afford to buy other things. I point out how much they love that shirt and I talk about how I have pairs of shoes that are older than my youngest kid (and probably my middle one, too).

Gifts, not just clothing, that they ask for are dismantled in short order – a day, maybe a week, after they’re purchased. Anything they can smash up will be smashed. We warn them not to touch the fragile thing and.. blammo! broken! We tell them not to leave the electronic thing on the floor and.. blammo! stepped on and broken!

Some day, when I can face it, I’ll document the insane damage done to this house – not by accident, but intentionally. Not even out of anger – ‘just because’.

They’re like the perfect little Zen Monks – material things have absolutely no value to them. It is maddening, though, for me.

And so I look at that winter coat and I think, eh.

This afternoon we went out to run some errands and I re-noticed the large chunk of fabric missing from the back of one of the kids’ coats. I say ‘re-noticed’ because I became aware of it at some point in the recent past and, at the time, chose to ignore it.

Today I looked at that ‘hole’ and tried to decide how I feel about it.

Thoughts I had:

• I should sew that up somehow or sew on a patch
• I really don’t want to because the patch/sewing will come undone anyway given the location of the hole and the way he rolls around on the playground/sidewalk
• if I spend the time to fix it and he wrecks it I’ll just be mad
• the hole isn’t impacting on his warmth at all; it’s near the bottom of the coat
• if my mother were alive she’d fix it
• my mother sewed and/or patched and/or fixed holes in my clothes immediately or else she threw them out and I don’t think I cared either way
• I’m not my mother. It doesn’t matter what she did or didn’t do.
• it looks like we can’t afford to buy him a new coat
• it’s February and he’ll need a new one next year so why buy another now?
• his jeans are frayed at the bottom
• I gave up on hemming jeans for the kids once I realized they outgrew the hems too quickly
• I’m also lazy
• am I being lazy by not fixing the coat? or am I just being realistic?
• I don’t want people to think we can’t afford a new coat, I just don’t want to spend money on a new coat for, at most, 3 months of wearing it before he outgrows it and he’s the smallest so..
• I bet the teachers at school judge me
• do the other mothers judge me too?
• do I care?
• maybe I should be more insistent on the kids dressing nice(r) instead of letting them choose
• that’s just stupid
• I’m not fixing the damned coat. Fuck it.

Lately I have a persistent feeling that various experiences or conversations (or whatever) are weighted with extra meaning that I can’t yet decipher.

That sounds a little paranoid, I think, but it’s not. Allow me to elucidate a bit.

One example: I have engaged in months and months of superficial conversation with someone (not a client, but someone that frequents an outreach location) and have been quite comfortable with this. We haven’t delved too deeply into anything and, whenever a topic drops down a little into the more personal or more emotional, this person has always shifted it quickly upward. A laughing comment or an abrupt change of topic to prevent us from going further.

Today the conversation was almost completely deep and it spanned multiple topics and was.. weighted. There were disclosures about all manner of things and I was asked to help decipher some issues and I learnt many things about this person that I would not have otherwise guessed.

I don’t know why now. I don’t know what brought this on.

Another example: several months ago, one of the people at this same outreach location decided that I was “good people”. He didn’t speak much English but, somehow, he decided that we were buddies and whenever he saw me he’d run up and pinch my cheeks and ask me “HOW ARE YOU!?” at the top of his lungs. At Hallowe’en, he brought me a mini chocolate bar and was giddy when I took it from his hands. He regularly patted my arm, or my shoulder, or, if I was sitting, my thighs. Friendly. I didn’t know his name and I don’t think he knew mine, either.

Earlier this week one of the outreach workers asked me if I knew [fill in a name] and I said I wasn’t sure – she described him and, right away, I knew who she was talking about. He had died a few days before; I don’t know how or of what.

For some reason, his death has hit me harder than any of the other deaths I’ve heard about in recent years. His photo is up on the wall at the outreach location and I kept staring at it today – but with no specific thoughts beyond sadness. I didn’t know him well enough to have any deeper thoughts; I don’t know how or why he died, whether it was ‘fair’ or not, or even the sort of person he was outside of those brief encounters.

Yet another example: lately the majority of my clients have opened up in a big way. I am hearing stories. People are weeping on my shoulders. I am getting advice, and feedback, about the services that no one wanted to offer before. Clients are telling me their problems and asking for advice. I’m getting hugged all over the place. I’m getting gleeful greetings. Men, usually the least communicative about certain topics, are talking openly.

There’s nothing to which I can attribute this. If it were one or two clients I’d just say that they had finally grown comfortable with me (after 2 years!) or that it was a fluke or.. whatever. But this is widespread. I haven’t done anything differently – nothing has changed except.. something.

…There’s so much more – stories that I can’t fully tell here while maintaining any degree of confidentiality and some that just have a vibe to them. I keep thinking – feeling – like there’s something going on underneath all of this.

Something BIG is coming.

My co-manager (who really needs a name here but I can’t think of anything that ‘fits’ other than his real name and I’m not putting that up here) had a personal situation pop up, unexpectedly, that has left me on my own for the week and possibly part of next week, too. It’s been.. interesting so far this week and it’s only been two days.

It’s almost comedic how difficult it is for me to manage his side of things (along with my own) – he handles specific things and I handle specific things and I’m completely paranoid about fucking up his stuff.This is also amusing for the simple fact that he’s one of the most laid-back people I know – I’m pretty sure that, as long as I didn’t actually get him fired somehow, he’d be fine with whatever I did or didn’t do this week.

None of the things I need to do in his absence are new, or challenging, specifically – but I’m walking around talking to myself and checking-rechecking-triple-checking lists that I’ve written for myself. We canceled a few things, we moved others, and we’ve postponed a few things, but there’s still a lot of stuff for me to handle. The nice thing about having a partner at work is that I don’t have to think about certain things at all. They just happen like magic. Right now, I’m responsible for both stuffing the rabbit into the hat and pulling it out on cue.

All of which is to say that I’ll be so glad when he’s back.

Relatedly, work has recently exploded in a most delightful way – a few new locations for outreach, new peers that I’m considering hiring (we’ll interview them when my co-manager returns), a group we’ve been planning has been given the green light for the location we wanted (yay!) and all sorts of similar good things. All of it has been intentional – little seeds that were planted months ago that are starting to bloom – and it’s really satisfying to see it all happen.

This, of course, means a lot of work on my part – it’s all good, but it’s stressful in the short term. I can’t handle the idea of half-assing anything that goes public, so I’m spending endless hours (or so it feels) planning and writing and making sure everything is lined up properly. My hyper-focus has kicked in and it’s a lovely, lovely thing to be able to indulge it.

This afternoon I was at my former college talking to soon-to-graduate students – and it felt like a decade ago that I was sitting in a classroom myself. It has been, of course, less than a year, but so much has happened in the past year that it feels like a lifetime.

I had joked, before going, that I had very little advice for people who were hoping to find employment in the field – but, really, there are commonalities between those of us who were quickly employed after (or even before) graduation. Every single one of us targeted what we wanted – for some people it was an agency that they targeted and for others, like me, it was a specific position that we planned toward. Then we worked toward it.

My academic advisor and I had butted heads, many times, about my career aspirations. He felt that I was ‘settling’ for outreach – that I should use some of my specific talents, and previous work experience, to do something a bit more lofty. As he pointed out – you can affect more change for people when you’re hiring up on the food chain. He is, of course, right.

(I suppose the consolation, for my advisor at least, is that I’m finishing my degree, slowly but surely.)

But.. I reminded him that my reason for changing careers was to decrease the bullshit in my life and to do something that had meaning. I’m at a point in my life where I can be a bit more picky about what I do – and where I know myself well enough to know what will make me happy. I don’t see any point in doing something if I’m not going to enjoy it.

I’m lucky, too, that I’m married to someone who is financially able to support our family and who not only agreed with my plan to change careers but actively supported me in doing so. We’re not wealthy but we’re certainly not poor. I don’t work just for the fun of it, but if my job starts to suck I have the luxury of being able to quit.

All of which is to say that I am busy as all get-out and I am still in love with my job. Sitting in that classroom today reminded me of that – how grateful I am for my life, lately. It’s a nice feeling.

Look who’s blogging again! Yippee!!!

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

Much has been written in outreach-related literature about the “value of peers” when it comes to providing services – especially in hard-to-reach groups. This, of course, makes perfect sense and, at the same time, is much more complicated than it sounds.

Peers, to put it in basic terms, are anyone with a specific experience who uses that experience to relate to others with that experience. Your coworkers are your peers, ultimately. In the context of my job, the peers that I recruit and train are people with experience in drug use, sex work or bloodborn infections (whether they currently have one or they’re in treatment or post-treatment) – and sometimes all of the above.

When a peer completes training with me, they’re able to use their past experiences and combine it with the ‘harm reduction’ methods they learn in order to help other people stay safe. So, for example, if they are someone who has used crack in the past, they know the routines and rituals and tastes and experiences of all of that. When they go through the training, they learn all the currently-known ‘best practices’ of using crack. Their job, then, is to help current crack users to do it in a safer way – preventing everything from burns to disease to overdose. I can (and do) tell people the best practices but, having never used crack, it’s all quite theoretical.

The benefits of working with peers are many. They often know a large number of people in the community – people that it’d take me years to develop a rapport with, let alone be trusted by – and they readily introduce me as a ‘safe’ person. When a client is able to trust me sooner, we’re able to get to the part in our relationship where we talk openly – and that allows us to work together much more effectively.

Those with experience in specific areas can help me to tailor our services appropriately. Or to explain our specific supplies. Or to understand why clients do, or don’t do, certain things that they ‘should’ do according to what I’ve read. For example, I belong to a large number of what I’d call “special interest groups” that give me regular updates on sex work – but they don’t address the local issues. Locally, sex workers have specific needs that I want to meet – and the only way to do that is to go with local info.

Peers also know, for lack of a better way to phrase it, all the gossip. The gossip, while often mind-numbing (because much of it requires a great deal of back story in order to fully understand the narrative and all of the stories are so incredibly complicated that it’s hard to follow), gives me some good insight into what my clients need – then I can tailor my services accordingly. I can help avoid some conflict in the outreach locations. I can learn which dealer is in jail and who’s selling bad crack. I quickly learn who’s in treatment or moved out of town. I know when to expect certain clients to come in really high or really upset or really depressed.

Most of my clients are fast-moving. Substance users run in for supplies and they run back out again to either go and get the drug(s) or use them. When I deliver supplies to sex workers they usually want me to leave quickly before their customer arrives. There is very little leisure time for most of my clients and I’m moving from place to place quickly when I’m working.

Peers also lend credibility to agencies, like mine. It shows that we’re not just ‘okay’ with people who use substance – we’re accepting and open. Most of my clients experience a lot of crappy stuff when it comes to health care and other services that people take for granted – they’re discriminated against, treated badly, and most of them don’t trust agencies very much. Most of the peers have lived through that, or continue to live with that. When a peer can honestly say to a client that people in our agency won’t bat an eyelash to hear about crack use, or sex work, or any number of other things, that client is much more likely to engage our services.

Peers, as noted, are kind of awesome.

They can also be extremely difficult.

I’m not speaking of any specific peers here, and some of this comes from other people’s peers (we talk about these things!) But let’s talk about why it’s challenging to work with peers, shall we?

The first issue is hard to explain, but I’ll try. People who have been ‘street involved’ for a long period of time, or who have been heavily involved, have a very specific sort of culture.

The term ‘street involved’ has many definitions but is usually used to refer to someone who is homeless, or precariously housed (meaning they don’t have stable housing), or under housed (meaning their living situation isn’t adequate or sustainable). Street involved people use services intended for people who are street-involved (for example, an outreach street nurse rather than a doctor in an office), and identify or have some sort of affiliation with other people in similar positions, and they spend the majority of their time on the streets.

The street culture is challenging to understand if you don’t spend some time thinking about all the issues tied into it – safety, money, hierarchies, resources.. Much of it comes down to survival. It is extremely hard to reintegrate into ‘mainstream’ society – where the issues are different, the survival mechanisms are different, and where your experiences are often negated or considered shameful or ‘bad’.

The issue with the ‘street culture’ is bigger with some peers than with others. Some peers seem to lack manners or social graces (either because they’ve never learnt them or because they’re not applicable to their lives, generally, or because they’ve needed to be tough for many years and saying ‘please!’ isn’t exactly tough, or..so many other reasons.) Some peers are so rough around the edges that they’re intimidating to mainstream people – making it hard to bring the peer into an office space or to a meeting without worrying that they’re going to offend someone, or make a bad impression (and the peer worries about this, too!). I have to work with peers, sometimes, around basic social skills.

Some peers have literacy issues due to lack of education (dropping out early) or learning disabilities. They don’t necessarily have email or internet access. Filling in forms or writing up stats can be a challenge. Sometimes they don’t have a home phone # or a cell phone that has minutes available for calls. It’s hard to call someone for a shift if you.. can’t call them.

It can also be hard to reign peers in – because they have ‘seen the light!’ and they want to share. Anyone who’s read up on addiction and recovery can tell you that most people go through a stage where they are SO happy about their own sobriety that they basically want to go out and save the world. (This frequently leads to burn out because, as you may know, people really need to decide for themselves when it’s time to make a change – and any other attempt to lead, prod or otherwise motivate them will lead to failure most of the time.) Peers often become frustrated by the ‘red tape’ in agencies – something with which I can empathize – and want to go around the rules or ignore them altogether. I spend a lot of time talking about how I, too, wish I could do [x, y and z] but that I’m no help to anyone if I’m arrested or fired. I have to follow the process and build things slowly and in a meaningful way – and so do the peers.

Peers who are still quite street involved may have incredibly chaotic lives and relationships – making it hard for them to get to work on time, focus on work, stay for an entire shift, or be reliable in general. They spend a lot of time ‘venting’ about their issues and many of the issues are difficult to comprehend if you’re not living a similar lifestyle. It’s hard to empathize at times. Peers often need to leave for appointments with all manner of workers at other agencies just to maintain their housing or their ability to buy groceries or to maintain custody of their kid(s). This can be frustrating for me.

Peers who are still using substances (we don’t require sobriety of any sort other than a requirement that you not use drugs at all while you’re working) may have addiction issues that are better, or worse, at varying times – making it hard, again, to be reliable. There is a fine line that supervisors have to walk – between being understanding of someone’s addictions and maintaining the professionalism of the service. Our agency will help peers get into treatment if needed, but even that has challenges.

It goes without saying that peers may be triggered by their job. A peer who is a former sex worker may be triggered when talking to current sex workers about specific things. A peer who is a former crack user may one day find it hard to hand out crack pipes. This requires conversations and support and, sometimes, quick rescheduling of a shift.

On a day-to-day basis, the peers take up a very large chunk of my time. They also have support from another person at my agency (one-on-one support, specifically) and other supports in the community, generally, which should give you a bit of insight into how intense things can get.

The kicker? When a peer has mostly overcome all of the above issues, they often move on to other things. They go back to school. They get a full-time job. They settle into a stable relationship and move to another province. Peer work is generally not a high-paying position and the hours are quite random (which is ideal for most peers, thankfully) so it’s wonderful when someone can move on – and it’s awesome to see someone start chasing their dreams – but ohmygod, I want them to stay!

All of this is to say that I’m currently in the process of recruiting, interviewing, training and hiring more peers. I am both thrilled and dismayed by this. You have no idea how much I wish I could write about all of it here. I’m not sure there’s any way I could do it without breaking confidentiality all over the place.. Pray for mojo.

I am slowly packing my suitcase, again, in preparation for departing to Toronto later this afternoon. My method is fairly straight-forward: I put a few things in, I wander off for a bit, I put another few things in. Then I sit down and read email, catch up on a blog or two, and, most recently, I made a mug of tea that’s steeping while I type this. It might not be efficient but it’s definitely not stressful, either.

The good thing is that this trip is for some training, not a conference, and I’m wearing jeans + hoodies the whole time. Easy to pack, easy to fit in. No need for multiple pairs of shoes – just sneakers. I approve of this sort of event.

That said, I’d rather stay home. I know that I always say that but it’s true: I love home. I love being in the place where I keep all of my stuff; I love not needing to try to anticipate my own needs in advance and cramming everything into a bag. I love sleeping in my own bed, with my own blankets and my own husband next to me. I love waking up to my own routines and rituals.

It’s got nothing to do with the reason for going to Toronto or the people I’m going with or the things we’ll do there. It’s just that.. well, can’t we just do this at my place instead?

No? Are you sure?

I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday night, then.

When I am working, as a general rule, I spend a significant amount of time with people who share a lot of similar views to my own. It’s really, really nice.

There are variances, of course, but most of my coworkers believe in some of the same core concepts that I hold dear; there are no arguments about things like sexism or racism or equality or poverty or harm reduction. When those subjects come up, we can easily talk about them without angst or anger.

We come at things from different angles, at times, but the very core of the discussion is one of agreement. Our disagreements are akin to having different favourite colours; no one is right in choosing blue as their favourite in place of orange. We learn from each other, I think, because we have different experiences personally and as a result of the work that we do and because we’re open to discussing them as much as we’re able.

Outside of my work circle, and in my personal life, things are not much different. The majority of my friends share similar core values and viewpoints to my own – again, with some variances or minor disagreements – and, I suppose, that’s part of why they’re my friends. My husband and I have very similar thoughts on social issues. My kids are still in the exploration side of things but are receptive to the topics we discuss around the dinner table.

At times, I have needed to defend my viewpoints to people in my community. During workshops or presentations, I speak openly about my work and, of course, I encounter people who don’t agree with some of my core values and the principles of what I do. Sometimes I’m working with those people in a manner where I’m there only to present the info and leave. Other times, if someone is open-minded enough for a discussion, we can talk about why we disagree on those issues. But, when all is said and done, people walk away and, for the most part, I don’t see them again or I rarely run into them. Either way, if I’ve been professional in my interactions, there’s no negativity when we meet up again. I’ve often been pleasantly surprised to hear people say that they’ve been thinking more about something I’ve said and that they have questions or have somewhat softened their stance on particular issues.

I believe, very much, that education is the way to overcome a lot of the bullshit in the world. Whenever I have the opportunity to teach someone about some of the things I’ve learnt – the things that I know – I’ll leap on it. This includes discussions about poverty and addictions and sexism and racism and mental illness and.. well, a lot of other things that people who aren’t in my field of work may not have had reason to explore. Subjects that are fraught with tension and fears and misunderstandings.

Bear with me while I sort of change subjects for a moment, ok?

Having semi-recently pared things down, I have 300-ish friends on Facebook. Some of them are people I’ve met through my professional life (my current boss, for example, and my coworkers) and some are from my time at college. A few are from university, some are from previous jobs, some are from high school and a few are from elementary school. I have relatives, blog readers (hello!) and neighbours on my friends list. There are members of my kids’ family, people I’ve met online in various communities, and a few friends-of-friends that I met through Facebook interactions.

It goes without saying that many of these people have different opinions from my own. In some cases, I can observe and learn things from those other opinions – about religion, for example, or about the cultures of other countries. I am learning about different political perspectives and about different lifestyles. I’m learning what it’s like to participate in different sports or careers that I had never considered for myself. All of this is good.

Shortly before Christmas, however, I began to struggle greatly with a LOT of bullshit on Facebook. There were long-winded diatribes about how “Christmas is Christmas and how DARE you try to take that way from me by saying ‘happy holidays’!” People that I’ve known for years began writing status updates that were blatantly xenophobic – including the age-old statement of, “If you don’t like the way we do things in Canada, you should go back to your own country” and “In Canada we celebrate Christmas and if you don’t celebrate it than you don’t belong here!” and other awful crap along those lines.

My first inclination was to speak up. Until I noticed that the person writing the awful statements was getting 20+ “likes” on their statement – meaning that they, just like me, have friends who share similar viewpoints. On my own wall, I posted a few little things about my own holiday-related feelings – that inclusion is a more Canadian value than “Merry Christmas” and that no one was trying to ‘take away’ Christmas from those who celebrate it and for whom it has meaning. I didn’t push it very far, though.

Sidenote: there is no “War on Christmas”. No one is trying to take away YOUR right to celebrate whatever holiday – religious or otherwise – that you choose to celebrate. Why does the idea of someone celebrating a different holiday make you so angry? How is it offensive to you that your government, funded and elected by everyone in the community, tries to include all the members of the community?

(And let’s not even address the fact that those same governments don’t really acknowledge other holidays – religious or cultural – in any meaningful way during the month of December or otherwise. It really is just lip service but, at least, we’re making some progress on that.)

I ended up mostly staying quiet because I was so angry that I couldn’t find coherent ways to express myself that wouldn’t immediately put people on the defensive. No one learns while they’re being defensive.

After the holidays, things calmed down. People went back to posting pictures of their kids or talking about their job or detailing what they ate for breakfast. All good.

But.. lately I’ve seen postings like this:

Good god. Where do I even start? The person posting it made some comments about “SO TRUE!” and their friends chimed in and all I can think is: where’s your compassion? Sure, it’s an American posting it, but it’s not far off from what some of my Canadian FB friends have posted at times.

I don’t have the inclination or time to research the stats; for the sake of this ‘discussion’ let’s assume they’re reasonably accurate, though I suspect they’re not.

Why do you suppose those 12 million illegal immigrants are in the United States right now? Is it because they want to live in a country where they have to be hidden, can’t work openly, can’t access services or health care, are often supporting families in other countries (and are thousands of miles away from their children and spouses), are treated awfully by anyone who does employ them (because that employer knows they won’t complain about mistreatment and low wages and long hours) and where they’re openly hated by many of the citizens? Maybe there’s more to it than 12 million people from elsewhere woke up one morning, came to the US for that delicious free-ride you think you’re providing to them, and now they’re living the lap of luxury while you pay for it with your taxes? Maybe?

Those 3 million crackheads.. why do you suppose they’re smoking crack (or using any other drug, for that matter)? Is it because they woke up one morning and decided that they wanted a life of addiction and all the mess that usually accompanies that life? They decided that the best idea EVER was to lose so much of what they held dear and replace it all with drugs? Do you actually think that anyone chooses this? Or that it’s such a great life that people don’t want to break away from it? Are crackheads having the time of their lives?

The 42 million unemployable people on food stamps.. I don’t even know what that means. If they’re actually ‘unemployable’ there are two reasons and the first is that they have health issues of some sort that make it impossible for them to work. Should we just take them out back and shoot them? Tell them to starve because they were unlucky enough to have that health problem? Or are we talking about unemployable people due to the shift in economy and the number of people out of jobs because the government and financial systems fucked them over? People who will require retraining, perhaps, before they’re employable again? Should we also shoot them because, again, they were unlucky and don’t deserve to eat?

2 million people in prison.. ohdeargod, are you kidding me? I agree, to some extent, that your tax money shouldn’t be funding that bullshit because most of those people shouldn’t be incarcerated in the first damned place. Here’s where we could talk about racism and outdated, biased laws and governments that create prisons-for-profit and all sorts of injustices. But people who are incarcerated deserve food and shelter and all the other basic human rights, regardless of why they’re locked up – and, seriously, most of those people shouldn’t be in there and goddammit, why would you want to make that worse for them? Pay your fucking taxes and complain to your government officials about what they’re doing with that money when it comes to prisons.

535 fools in the house and senate.. Did you vote? Do you write letters to these people? Do you protest? If not, well, you’re an idiot and, quite frankly, the IRS is just extracting an Idiot Tax from you on this one. You deserve to fund shit you don’t like if you don’t try to change things.

But here’s what it all boils down to: fear and lack of education.

In all of the cases above, the person who agrees with this is under the impression that they – whoever they are – could never be desperate enough to flee to another country. They could never be addicted. They could never be unemployed (for any length of time, at least) and they could never be incarcerated.

And in every single case, they’re wrong. It just hasn’t happened to them yet. I’m not surprised when I hear people talk about how “welfare” is a bad idea and how it’s full of people scamming the system and living a life of luxury while ‘the rest of us go and work our asses off to pay for it’. We push thoughts of our own vulnerability aside. We think we’re ‘better than’ and we think we’re ‘smarter than’. We assume it’s a failing on the part of that ‘other’ that causes them to need help. WE will never need help – THEY will always need it.

I wish I could tell everyone who believes the bullshit – noted above and elsewhere – to spend some time thinking hard about it. To think deeply about how they got to where they are now; think about the luck, the help, the ‘right place, right time’ of all of it. Think, too, about how it could all come undone.

And I wish I could find a way to facilitate conversations between the people who agree with the bullshit and the people who live the reality of it – an honest discussion where people put aside their defensiveness and where no one gets offended and where questions and answers flow openly.

I haven’t posted any of this on Facebook for a variety of reasons. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to rebutting 80 arguments from friends-of-friends who leap up and start shrieking. I don’t have the time or energy to spend endless hours on Facebook in general. I know that people don’t learn unless they’re open to learning – and that someone who posts bullshit on Facebook isn’t looking for anything other than agreement in that forum. I don’t have a relationship, with some of these people, that would allow me to ‘educate’ on some of the issues.

It’s tempting to “unfriend” all of the people who post bullshit. To step back and say, “Holy shit, no thank you!” and hang out with my like-minded friends – the people who don’t make me want to start kicking things. I have to keep reminding myself that this is educational for me – that, by listening and watching and reading, I can find ways to understand what they fear most and use that whenever it’s appropriate to educate people. When I do my workshops about harm reduction, for example, or when I’m talking to people about why we need to increase the amount of social assistance (“welfare”) we pay to people, I can better address those issues if I know why others oppose them.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to listen and watch. It doesn’t make it easier to bite my tongue.