Poverty Informed Practice - Never Get To Be You

I discovered Neil Young when I was in college. I was about 25 years late to the game, but in the fall of 1989, I heard "Rockin' in the Free World" for the first time. Here is one of my favorite live versions for those of you who have seven minutes Neil and Pearl Jam 1993. I love music, but like my dad I'm a lyrics guy at heart, and even in my teen years, there were lyrics in this song that put me in discomfort. In the 2nd verse, Neil describes seeing a "woman in the night with a baby in her hand." The woman "put her kid away" while she struggles with her addiction and the song says she "hates her life and what she's done to it..." This part always made me uncomfortable and emotional. I didn't have language for it then, but I knew what it was to have someone you love struggle with addiction, and the way they felt about themselves, and how it was reinforced by a world that blames you for your struggles. But it was what Neil sang about the child that has stuck with me for more than 30 years, "There's one more kid that'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool..." For someone just out of high school, this felt so unfair, so viscerally wrong. How can children be robbed of their chance? How could we allow that to happen? I think it is why I chose my first career as a teacher. I wasn't very sophisticated, but I just knew this was not right or fair.

Fast forward decades later and I can't stop thinking about the unfairness of things, and the inability of people like me to truly do things that could change the circumstance. After the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case this week, I was feeling very upset and low. I was speaking to my friend Mandy, and how upset the people around us were for the most part. And then it hit me, none of those people (including me), were really going to do anything. We would be upset, we might post some support or thoughts on social media, or perhaps donate to a preferred cause or candidate, but mostly we were going to go home to our places of comfort and safety and watch the world roll on. Mandy took the opportunity to remind me she had been telling me this for years about my personal crusade against poverty. She reminded me how so many of us, even those who care and believe things need to change, risk very little on a personal level to drive that change. It was powerful because she included herself in the critique, and I knew I belonged there as well. I've known my whole life the game is not fair, but I have built my own safety and comfort first, I just have. And this knowledge was reinforced by my thoughts of driving to Kenosha, and my choice not to. I rationalized it was because I couldn't do anything, but I honestly wondered about my safety if things got heated. It was a risk I was not willing to take.

Even my media consumption reinforced this gnawing discontent recently. I binge-watched Maid on Netflix and was struck by the incredibly accurate portrayal of the intersection of poverty and emotional abuse. It was triggering on a personal level, but also infuriating watching how our systems failed the protagonist and forced her to be a hero to get what she needed. I could not stop thinking about all the potential lost in similar situations which didn't result in books or TV shows. I could not stop thinking about how allowing this is a choice we make. I cannot stop thinking about how we have chosen to be ok and safe in our own worlds when this is happening. This feeling hit me again today when my daughter invited me to join her to see King Richard, a movie about the childhoods of Venus and Serena Williams, and their dad Richard. I remembered Richard Williams when his daughters were becoming well known, and thinking he was a showboat, and a clown, and maybe not a good person. The movie reminded me he, like everyone, is much more complex than the caricature I held 20 years ago. I saw a man and a family fighting through endless systems of exclusion and oppression to change the arc of their lives. I think it is supposed to be a feel-good story, but once again I just wondered how many Venus's and Serena's were left behind in poverty and in racist systems. So much potential lost because we do not see these systems, or more disturbingly act to disrupt them when we do see them.

So, I am struggling. Where does my right to have things run into the fact others have so much less? Where do my choices to take care of myself mean I am ignoring the needs of others? And perhaps even more sinister, where do I turn my gaze from systems that benefit me, even if they harm others. For me this raises big questions. I am guessing others will not see my thoughts as all that insightful because their lived experience has shown them these things all along. I think it is remarkable those who are being excluded aren't even angrier than they are. I don't have a happy ending to this essay. It is just my challenge to myself and my calling out of others like me. Do we keep restrictions on what we will do to even the playing field because it might put us at risk? What are those of who believe the status quo is not ok willing to actually put on the line? There are times I think the kind of change we need can only happen at a policy level, but I wonder if that is an easy excuse for those of us who have what we need to live with the fact others don't have what they need. I have more questions than answers, but today I am confident a quote from Russell Lowery-Hart in the Atlantic (read here) is on the money. "It isn’t enough, we’re not doing enough, we have to do more.” I am committing to doing more, and risking more, will you?

Rockin' in the Free World has become something of an American standard in the 3 decades since it was released. Eddie Vedder has always loved the song and led a jam session at the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony (2017 Show). In the performance in front of the affluent crowd Eddie made a subtle change to the lyrics, and it means everything to me in my current state of mind. Instead of "one more kid that'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool...", Eddie changed one word. As he stared at the audience he sang "there's one more kid that'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be you..." And I hope the motivation to do more, to extend more, is right there for more of us. Why do we allow people to be robbed of the opportunity to be us? If we believe that is wrong, what would we be willing to do to change it?