Say the Word

Trigger warning: Discussion of miscarriage and pregnancy.

***

It's hard to believe it's already been a year since I "went public" about my September 2018 miscarriage, but it's true - once again it's October 15, Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Day. And while this one obviously feels different from the last - thanks both to the passage of time, which dulls all grief, and to the fact that this year I'm pregnant with a healthy pregnancy - I do still have some things to say about pregnancy loss, and my experience in the months that followed mine. Today seemed an appropriate day to share those thoughts.

Throughout the fall and winter immediately following my miscarriage, I had a lot of people reaching out and checking in with me, throughout my Facebook post, my blog, private social media messages, texts, emails, snail mail cards, phone calls, and in-person conversations. These efforts made me feel loved, listened to, and so lucky to be surrounded by such a wonderful support system.

And yet, there was something about many of those interactions that I found curious (and, if I'm honest, a little annoying at times) - something I hesitate to bring up for fear of seeming ungrateful:

People really don't like using the words "miscarriage"* or "pregnancy loss." In fact, they often go frustratingly out of their way to avoid them, using all sorts of superfluous and downright mystifying phrases instead.

Over those several months, I heard my miscarriage referred to as - and this is a non-exhaustive list - "that time" and "last fall" (as if autumn is inherently a challenging time of year), "the pain and difficulty you went through," "that thing that happened to you, which I read about on your blog," and even the ultra-vague "recent events." (That last one particularly confused me, as it was said to me in February - an entire five months after my miscarriage. If it weren't for other context clues, I wouldn't have had any idea what they were referring to.)

Then there were other people who just trailed off in the middle of a sentence, unable to think of a synonym for the word they were desperate to avoid: "How have you been doing since...?" or "I know someone else who also had a... you know..."

It was hard to ignore the pattern, and it was hard not to take it a bit personally. When it happens time and time again, with a dozen different people, you begin to wonder: Is it something about me? Are they pitying me? Do they think I'm "too fragile" to hear them use the actual word? It's not a great feeling.

At the very least, their avoidance signaled to me that they were uneasy talking about it - and that put me in a bit of an awkward position. Whether they were asking me how I was doing because they felt socially obligated to, or because they genuinely wanted to know, they hardly encouraged me to give them an honest answer or start up a lengthier conversation when the topic appeared to make them so uncomfortable. I often ended up giving the answer it seemed they wanted to hear ("I'm doing fine, thanks for asking") and leaving it at that. They got to feel good about reaching out, but I ended up feeling rather alone.

(This isn't to say I needed or wanted to talk about my miscarriage all the time; I usually didn't. But there were times when I would've liked to know the option was there if I wanted to talk, and when people refused to call my miscarriage a miscarriage, it felt like it took away the option.)

I noticed this tendency to avoid the label more in people who hadn't experienced their own miscarriage. Some couples who've been through pregnancy loss of their own also avoid using the word of course (and in a society that still sees the topic as taboo, and frequently discourages showing vulnerability, it's no wonder), and there were certainly those who hadn't been through a miscarriage who were still willing to use the terminology. But more often than not, I realized that if someone was unafraid to use the word in front of me, it was because they'd been there. They knew what it was called; they knew what they called theirs. What's more, they knew that refusing to label an event does nothing to change the event itself - and that embracing the label can actually be incredibly empowering.

It reminds me (as so many things do, let's be honest) of the Harry Potter books. As soon as Harry learns about his parents' death in Book 1, after ten years of being denied the truth surrounding that night, his instinct is to refer to it every time thereafter as what it really was - murder at the hands of Voldemort - even while that decision shocks everyone around him.

"You said You-Know-Who's name!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people - "

"I'm not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name," said Harry. "I just never knew you shouldn't."

Except that Harry did know - Hagrid had already told Harry that most wizards call Voldemort "You-Know-Who" or "He Who Must Not Be Named." And as the book continues, Ron has to repeatedly ask Harry to stop saying Voldemort - because Harry keeps doing it, despite Hagrid's explanations and Ron's protests. At 11 years old, Harry hardly has the words to describe why he feels the need to do this (and J.K. Rowling doesn't come out and say it either), but I think it's because to say anything else, or to avoid speaking Voldemort's name out loud, would feel dishonest and dishonoring to both his parents and his own journey of grief. He was mad that the truth about his parents' deaths had been hidden from him for so long, and now that he knew what had really happened, he wasn't going to go back to lies, omissions, or spreading misinformation. In any case, at the end of the book, Harry's choice (and mine) is vindicated when Dumbledore tells him, "Always use the proper names for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

As I've said in previous posts, one of the best ways to grapple with trauma is to take ownership of it - to take something that happened to you, and make it happen for you instead. The first step in this process of moving on is often getting past denial by naming and defining your experience. Using the appropriate, Google-able terms furthermore gives you access to information about what to expect (a great help in reducing fear of the unknown), and connects you with others who've gone through something similar (paramount to helping you feel less alone in your experience and provide you with a useful support system).

On the various "What to Expect When You're Expecting" miscarriage/pregnancy loss boards, and similar boards on other apps and online forums, accurate labels are in fact so common that shorthands are used instead. MC = miscarriage, MMC = missed miscarriage, CP = chemical pregnancy, EP = ectopic pregnancy, MP = molar pregnancy, BO = blighted ovum, etc. Spend any amount of time on those boards, and you quickly figure out what all those abbreviations mean.

Granted, all of those posters are on there because they want/need a space to talk about it - and there are many who experience pregnancy loss and don't want to talk about it at all - but isn't it telling that of those eager to share their experiences, none of them choose to talk about it in euphemisms? We know the deeper truth: it happened, regardless of what creative phrase you come up with to describe it - so you might as well just call it what it is. To do otherwise just compounds unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding at best - or perpetuated fear, shame, oppression, and isolation at worst.

My doctors, too, never beat around the bush - I assume from some combination of not having time or tolerance for euphemisms. My medical chart says everything: in between comments about my high-risk status due to my diabetes, there are phrases like "incomplete abortion" (the medical term for missed miscarriage) and "multigravida" (meaning that I've had more than one pregnancy). And so, every time I saw a new doctor (or one I hadn't seen in awhile, since the start of this pregnancy), the doctor would both congratulate me on my new pregnancy and acknowledge that my first had ended in loss: "We're so glad to see you back here with a healthy pregnancy!" or "That first one was just a fluke; I hope you aren't worried. Everything looks great this time!" During an appointment early in my second trimester, when a doctor was trying to find my baby's heartbeat with a Doppler wand and having a bit of difficulty, he apologized. "I know it's hard when we can't find it right away for you, after everything you've been through. But babies just hide sometimes! I'm sure I'll find their heartbeat in a minute - ah look, there it is! Strong and healthy, at 150 beats per minute."

I assumed the people who took great pains to circumnavigate the words "miscarriage" or "pregnancy loss" in my presence meant well. They likely did it because they were afraid of offending, embarrassing, or upsetting me, or because they themselves found the words offensive, embarrassing, or upsetting to say. I don't think they did it to purposefully incite shame. But when they treated those words as if they were potentially offensive or embarrassing, that's exactly what they were doing, wasn't it? Even if they didn't mean to. They were treating my miscarriage like something I should be ashamed of, something I should take offense to others knowing about and acknowledging, something that shouldn't be said out loud.

There are a whole bunch of other words like miscarriage: rape, assault, depression, suicide. They are things that our society is afraid of and uncomfortable with, and words that erroneously have connotations of blame attached. We all want to believe that there's a reason these things happen, and ways of preventing them - and the easiest way to do that is by blaming the person it most affects. (And for trauma like rape and pregnancy loss that disproportionally affect women, this impulse is all the more frequent.) But the truth is, acts of violence can happen at any time to anybody, regardless of what that person does; mental illnesses and other chronic disorders affect otherwise healthy people indiscriminately and unpredictably; and miscarriages, which occur in at least 1 in 4 pregnancies, are nearly always just a matter of horribly bad luck. These are not things that can be prevented, as much as we wish they were, and they are not things we should let anyone feel ashamed of.

If someone says they're on medication for the treatment of their depression (or anxiety or bipolar disorder or OCD or anything else), don't call it their "condition," implying that it's some nebulous, vague, unknowable disease - use the label that they and their doctors and therapists use. And if someone has publicly proclaimed that they were raped or sexually assaulted (as so many have in this era of #MeToo), don't try to find another phrase to use instead ("nonconsensual sex," "forced sex," "taken advantage of," etc.) - use the words they use: "rape" and "assault." To do anything less is to disempower the survivor who has chosen to use that word to describe their experience.

This isn't Victorian times anymore. It doesn't do anybody any good to force these topics or words into secrecy.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't admit my own faults. There were times when I wanted to use the word "miscarriage" (or at least obliquely refer to mine, even without using the word), but shied away from doing so... As I've found with so many things that open us up to vulnerability, it's easier to write it in a blog post than it is to say it out loud.

My impulse to mention my first pregnancy didn't go away once I was pregnant for the second time - in fact, it was something I often wanted to do during those first few weeks. It felt weird to me to tell people I was pregnant without acknowledging what I'd been through; I always wanted to tack on the word "again": "I'm pregnant again!" I was also frequently compelled to compare my two experiences - how did my symptoms this time stack up to what I'd felt during my first pregnancy? But I did my best to curb those impulses and keep such observations mostly to myself - even while doing so felt like lies of omission and hypocrisy, perpetuating shame and stigma just as I accused others of doing.

I was worried what others might think of me if I kept bringing up my miscarriage. Would they be concerned or even disappointed in me, that even when I was getting a second chance at pregnancy I was still "complaining" about what had happened the first time? Would they think I was somehow doing a disservice to my unborn child by refusing to let them be their own person, with their own pregnancy, untainted by what I'd experienced previously? And what if someone heard me say these things who had experienced more than one miscarriage, or someone who struggled with infertility, and was still waiting for their rainbow baby, or their first positive pregnancy test to arrive - would I come across as ungrateful, would my words spark jealousy in their hearts? I knew how difficult it could be to hear about someone else's pregnancy when you were hoping and trying so hard for your own, and I didn't want to inadvertently cause anyone else that sort of pain.

I was also worried about making other people uneasy by reminding them, in the same breath as telling them my happy news, that life also brings loss sometimes. This acknowledgement did not temper my own excitement - I would argue that knowing the worst that could happen and holding that concurrently with my hopes and dreams for my new pregnancy actually made me appreciate and value my pregnancy even more. But I was worried that others might not feel the same way I did, and think me adding that "again" to the end of "I'm pregnant!" was in poor taste.

I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to care less what others think of me, and to feel less responsible for the reactions that others might have to the things I say and do. I'm trying to prioritize myself, and say the things I want to say (even if for now that means mostly just posting them on here). I want to be a role model for my future child(ren), and exemplify the traits of self-confidence, honesty, authenticity, and openness to vulnerability that I so value and admire when I see them in others.

I hope anyone reading this post will try to be better, too. And if, in the meantime, the best you can do is ask someone "How are you doing since...?" - at least that's something. In the end, I was always touched when someone took the time to contact me, and - as stated before - felt extremely grateful that so many did.

I'd much rather someone reach out clumsily than not at all.



***

*To be fair, there is some debate about the appropriateness of the term "miscarriage" - given that when you break it down into its components ("mis" and "carry") it seems to put blame on the one who was carrying the baby-to-be in their womb. Still, I think it's safe to say that if someone uses the word "miscarriage" to talk about their experience, you can assume they aren't offended by the term, and feel free to use that word yourself when talking to them about it. If you do want to avoid that particular word, "pregnancy loss" (or even just "loss") is a good substitute.

Personally, I find "pregnancy loss" to be both a more and less accurate description of my experience - it feels more accurate, in that I quite literally lost a pregnancy, and certainly didn't incorrectly carry the child I was hoping to have; it feels less accurate in that "pregnancy loss" is an umbrella term that encompasses stillbirths (losses after the 20 week mark) as well as miscarriages (losses before the 20 week mark), and I feel a bit like a fraud when lumping in my experience with others who quite literally labored and birthed a baby who may have even breathed outside the womb for a few short minutes or hours, and whom they may have had the chance to hold, however temporarily, in their arms as well as in their wombs and hearts. So while I do use both "miscarriage" and "pregnancy loss" interchangeably, I tend to default to "miscarriage" more often - just to avoid that constant internal debate with myself. (Not to mention that "pregnancy loss" just sounds clunkier in everyday conversation.)

To put an even finer point on it, I use other terms as well... I use "my miscarriage" or "my pregnancy loss" to refer generally to the weeks-long process of noting diminishing pregnancy symptoms, learning at my 8-week ultrasound that my baby had stopped growing, getting a D&C six days later, and the weeks of physical and emotional recovery that followed. But sometimes it's more convenient to reference a specific date rather than an entire process - and when that's the case (as it often was when we were trying to conceive again), I chose September 13 and called it "my D&C" (e.g. "this is my Nth menstrual cycle since my D&C"). More often, I think of the entire pregnancy, not just the end of it (and sometimes not the end of it at all), and I refer to it as "my first pregnancy" or "my last pregnancy" ("last" meaning previous, not final). Even when I was not yet pregnant again, I always used one of those qualifiers; trying to conceive requires a certain optimism and forwardness of perspective that assumes another pregnancy is just around the corner, if not already begun.

I don't care which of those terms you use with me - miscarriage, loss, pregnancy loss, your first pregnancy, etc. All of them are true, better than the verbose "that painful, difficult thing that happened to you last fall, which I read about on your blog," and refreshing to hear.

And if you're not sure what someone else wants their experience to be called - ASK THEM! I know it can be awkward and nerve-wracking, but if you want others to feel safe enough to be emotionally vulnerable around you and tell you how they're feeling, you might just have to be emotionally vulnerable around them, too. :)

Letting Marginalized Groups Speak for Themselves

I have a lot of privilege. I recognize this about myself.

I am white - very white, actually, with blonde hair and blue eyes. In high school, other people sometimes described me as Aryan. (I assumed they meant to imply that if I had lived in Nazi Germany, I would have so perfectly fit the description Hitler wanted for his new master race that not only would I have been spared, but possibly celebrated and married off to some prominent Nazi official in need of a respectable looking wife or something. The way they said it made it seem like a compliment, but it was a very strange compliment, and made me a little uncomfortable.) My point is - I could never pass for anything but white. I am so white that even among white people my whiteness is "fascinating" (or possibly intimidating). I have no way to fathom what it actually feels like to be a person of color in this country, because so much of my life experience has been that of white privilege. I can try to empathize, but there is no way I will actually ever understand.

I am female. And while this means I lack male privilege, I do still have cisgender privilege. My body and gender identity match. I also conform to many female appearance stereotypes - my hair is long, my fingernails are long and sometimes painted, and I often wear dresses and skirts, earrings and necklaces. I've never been misgendered. I can't truly understand how it would feel to have a disconnect between who I wanted to be and who I looked like on the outside.

I am straight. I am married to a white man. I never had to come out to my family or friends, or felt ostracized from my religion because of my sexual preferences, or had a stranger make incorrect assumptions about my sexual orientation, or felt that my relationship with my husband was somehow unacceptable or morally wrong. I'll never really know what it's like to be gay, bi/pansexual, or asexual.

I was raised Christian in a Christian-majority nation. My religion's holidays matched the school calendar. I was exposed to the traditions and cultural practices that remain entrenched in American society - and it was never required of me to learn any others. Though I chose to step away from Christian beliefs as I grew up, I still have that outward Christian privilege to fall back on if I chose to - unless I specifically admit that I don't believe in God and would rather identify as atheist, no one would know or assume that about me. I don't really know what it's like to belong to a different religion, a religion without privilege (though I've seen some glimpses, working as a graphic designer at a large Reform Jewish synagogue).

I grew up in a middle class family. I have never known real poverty. Even when my dad was unemployed for 15 months during the recession, I never really wanted for material things. Throughout my life, educational resources were readily available to me if I wanted them. I went to a local state school, was lucky enough to get scholarships and have a lot of my expenses paid for by family members and my (very) part-time jobs, and graduated with virtually no student loans. I'm 28 years old and my husband and I became homeowners five years ago. I don't know what it's like to lack class privilege. Even when it felt like maybe I didn't have it growing up, I really did. I've always had it, and still do.

I'm also healthy (relatively so). I look healthy from the outside. I have poor eyesight, so I wear corrective glasses - but there is no real stigma attached to wearing glasses, so that's irrelevant. And no one could guess any other chronic ailments I might have - unless I told them - because they are not noticeable, nor significant enough to impact my day to day life. I do a lot of preventive behaviors to keep the threat of LADA at bay (latent autoimmune diabetes in adults), because my glucose is slightly elevated. But it's never really been bad enough to be even officially labeled "diabetes," let alone impact my life much. And any mental health/emotional issues I'm working through also don't outwardly influence my daily functionality. I have ability privilege, and have no idea what it's really like to be discriminated against based on my ability (or appearance of my ability).

My point is that I'm not exactly an ideal candidate to talk about a lot of these issues - race, gender, sexuality, religion, class and ability - which I just spent several months addressing with colored pencil drawings and blog posts. I want to use my privilege to draw attention to these topics that warrant discussion, if I can. But I also want to be careful not to speak for these oppressed groups. I don't want my voice to drown out theirs, and I don't want to presume to know their experiences or what the best steps would be to help them moving forward.

This is perhaps the most difficult thing privileged people like myself face in trying to help the unprivileged. We want to help - but often don't quite know how to help. We spend so much time patting ourselves on the back for taking on liberal causes or doing good in the world that we neglect to recognize that we've painted ourselves as "savior" figures. Marginalized groups don't need us to "save" them - they just need us to shut up and listen. It shouldn't be up to us to give them more rights; it is instead our job to support them and help draw attention to their cause from the sidelines while they take the rights they deserve. We are meant to be allies, not leaders.

Marginalized means they have been relegated to the margins. It's our turn to stand in the margins instead, and allow oppressed groups an opportunity to assert their own voice.

I feel a bit like a fraud when I start talking about politics or social issues too much. I'm not an expert. I barely even follow details of what is going on in the world. (To be honest, there's just been too much bad news lately that it's been overwhelming. And I'm lucky enough that I have the privilege to tune all that shit out when it overwhelms me. But that is another discussion for another time.)

It is precisely this reason that my message in this "Stronger Together" series is so vague. My drawings celebrate the differences found in humanity and show a symbolic floral arrangement in which all flowers (all people) have equal weight in filling out a bouquet - regardless of race, gender, sexuality, religion, social class, or ability. It is a hopeful idea that could have just as easily been drawn a hundred years ago or a hundred years in the future as drawn today. It doesn't reference specific topical events, and it doesn't try to speak for marginalized groups. It just showcases a utopia in which all people have their own equal voices with which to speak.

It tells people where I stand - on the side of tolerance and love and acceptance, on the side of allies, on the side of hope for a better tomorrow - without presuming that I have any real answers, without taking a clear leadership role, and without even referencing many specifics. Maybe this isn't enough; maybe as an ally I could have done more. But this is where I'm at in my journey right now. I am erring on the side of Not Doing Enough out of concern for overstepping. This is the extent that I feel capable of.

I do feel more qualified to talk about gender and religion, because these are areas that I feel I have more personal experience in. I don't have male privilege and never have, and I gave up Christianity to label myself an Atheist (an Atheist who married into a Jewish family, an Atheist who works at a Reform Jewish synagogue), so I don't have as much religious privilege anymore either. I can more comfortably talk about these issues and state where the problems lie - because I've witnessed them myself and because I am one of the marginalized who deserve to have their voices heard.

But even here, I often want to step aside to let those with intersectional oppression speak. I can only speak to my experience as a white, cisgendered, straight woman; women who are black or gay or transgendered (or all of the above) face much greater oppression than anything I've lived through.

All humans suffer sometimes. But not all suffering is created equally.

I hope that my "Stronger Together" drawings are adequate at straddling that line - the line between speaking up but not shouting over those less privileged than me; the line between wanting to do something, or say something, but not knowing exactly what to do or say. I hope that their vagueness allow more people to find resonance in them. Often, the more we get into specifics, the more we start to disagree. I am hoping that despite where we are on the political spectrum, or what life experiences we've had, or what privilege we've been granted or oppression we've endured, we can all agree in this very basic premise:

Humans - ALL humans - deserve respect, love, acceptance, acknowledgement, tolerance, and to have their voices heard.

Especially those who have traditionally been denied such things, who have a lack that needs to be filled.

Finished "Stronger Together" Series

My "Stronger Together" series consists of six 19"x25" colored pencil drawings, each created with Prismacolor pencils on black Canson Mi-Teintes paper.

The general concept behind the drawings is this: We humans can be labeled, divided, segregated, and categorized in a myriad of different ways, including (but not limited to) race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and ability. Often, with these six categories in particular, certain subgroups have been historically/traditionally thought of as "lesser," while other subgroups are thought of as inherently better, stronger, or smarter - and are therefore given more opportunities, more privilege, and more power. This is, to use a profound phrase, absolute bullshit. People don't have more or less inherent worth than others just because of the families they were born into, their genetic code, their preferences, their life experiences, or the choices they make. We are ALL human, and we ALL matter and deserve respect. In fact, we matter not despite our differences, but because of them.

Floral arrangements are not melting pots. They do not blend all varieties together into a muddy brown soup. They are made greater by the sum of their parts, while still showcasing each beautiful part that makes up the whole. And so I chose to use drawings of floral bouquets, each made up of two dozen different flowers, to demonstrate the rich variety of the human experience, as it relates to those six categories.

**

RACE BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

I worked on this drawing way back in April, utilizing 31 different colored pencils. The bouquet consists of a wide range of flowers available in "skin tone shades" to demonstrate different races of people living and working side by side, in harmony, to create a beautiful, multicultural community.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

**

GENDER BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

This tri-tonal drawing was created in May using 30 different colored pencils. Here, I used "traditional" color stereotypes (pink for girls, blue for boys) and color theory (which recognizes that purple is the color created by mixing pink and blue together) to represent the spectrum of all genders in a symbolic floral bouquet.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

**

SEXUALITY BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

In the month of June (Pride Month), I finished this colorful drawing, which required a total of 39 different colored pencils. This "color wheel" bouquet includes all the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) to symbolize the beautiful arrangement made when all people identifying as/experiencing different aspects of human sexuality are included equally. This includes people with little or no sexual desire, as well as those who crave it all the time; people who yearn for only physical intimacy and those who find fulfillment in emotional intimacy and long-term relationships, people experienced and not experienced in a wide variety of sexual behaviors, and of course people at all places of the LGBTQIA spectrum.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

**

RELIGION BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

This completed piece, drawn with 28 different colored pencils in July, combines flowers that are symbolically associated with modern or ancient religions (including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, various Native American religions, and/or Greek/Roman mythology), with flowers that symbolize Atheism, Humanism, or Science, to present a utopian arrangement of religious tolerance and togetherness.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

**

CLASS BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

In August, I employed 26 different colored pencils to complete this drawing, which symbolizes different social classes through art of two dozen flowers. America is made up of very poor people, very rich people, and everyone in between. It is important that we acknowledge and give equal respect to all of these people, helping those who need assistance and remembering that we're all human.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

**

ABILITY BOUQUET (STRONGER TOGETHER)

The sixth and final drawing in this series used 29 colored pencils and was completed in September/October. Employing flower symbolism and visual cues (such as browning, aging, wilting, discoloration, or minor imperfections), I compiled two dozen flowers that would symbolize differences in physical, emotional, and mental ability. We all have different limitations, skills, and talents (not all of which are immediately or outwardly apparent) and we should work to respect and accommodate everyone so that we can better work and live together.

• Click here for the list of flowers used in this bouquet.
• Click here for more images of the final drawing (and links to pictures of the step-by-step process and detail shots).

The Ability Umbrella

For my final colored pencil drawing in this "Stronger Together" series, I will be focusing on ability. Before I start getting into the actual step-by-step process of creating the drawing, however, I want to take a minute to describe what I mean when I use the term "ability."

We all have different physical, mental, and emotional/psychological abilities (and limitations), which are impacted by our age, health, genetics, and life experiences.

Let's start with the physical - the one that most people would think of first when considering differences in ability. There are people who we might call physically disabled, because they are not "as able" as fit, healthy individuals - whether permanently or temporarily, or whether due to genetics, age, disease, or injury. Their physical disabilities might make it more difficult for them to interact with their environments - and in fact, many communities do a lot to accommodate these people with physical handicaps, to make their public spaces equally accessible to everyone. Elevators and ramps might be utilized, as well as push-button and automatic doors, for those lacking the ability to climb stairs or open doors. Signs might be written in words and in Braille, or crosswalks equipped with visual and auditory cues, to accommodate those with visual impairments. Where audible communication is integral to the use of a space, assistive listening devices might be provided for the deaf or hearing impaired - like individual headphones, written subtitles, or lectures or speeches that are simultaneously spoken and signed with American Sign Language.

These differences in physical ability don't have to be as "serious" as the above examples, of course. For example, there are minor differences in physical ability that will change as children grow older, taller and stronger. A perfectly healthy child still won't have the same abilities as an adult, due to their size and physical maturity. We accommodate children who are too short to reach the bathroom sink by lifting them up or supplying them with a step stool. We also protect them from systems designed for adult use, such as front seat airbags in automobiles, and require them to sit in the back and use appropriate child-sized car seats until they can safely sit in the front.

But more than all this, physical ability goes beyond the obvious signs we can see from the outside. There are countless diseases and genetic predispositions that wreak havoc only inwardly, with no visible outward symptoms. Many people suffer from these "invisible" illnesses, which include diabetes, IBS, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, infertility, ADD/ADHD, sleep disorders, allergies and food intolerances, asthma, lupus, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, migraines, arthritis, and other chronic pain disorders. These might affect someone's physical ability to work a full day, do something significant they may want to do (like have children, travel, or train for a marathon), or even get out of bed in the morning. Some of the symptoms can be treated or managed - but not always with 100% effectiveness, or for 100% of the time.

I start with this list of physical limitations that might impact our abilities because I think most of us can agree that people are still people, regardless of health or injury. Some people might need more assistance than others, some might rely on eyeglasses or walkers or hearing aids to get them through the day, and some may rely on a combination of understanding, compassion, and several different medications to manage invisible symptoms - but regardless of what life has thrown us in the way of physical health, we are all people who still deserve to be respected and treated with dignity, people who deserve to have their voices heard and their physical limitations accommodated for as much as possible, and people who have a lot to offer the world back in return.

The same holds true for those suffering from mental illnesses, emotional/psychological disorders, or neuro-atypicalness. These include autism/Aspergers syndrome, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and phobias, schizophrenia, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, and PTSD. Like "invisible" physical diseases, these are not usually obvious to outsiders, and are often stigmatized. People are often told that their suffering is all in their head, or their fault, or their responsibility to fix all by themselves, without outside assistance like medication, therapy, or strong support systems.

In addition to these diagnosable disorders, we also have differences in our mental and emotional abilities based on our experiences, how we were raised, any traumas we've lived through, our cognitive habits, genetics, or proclivities. We don't all process the world in the same way, and we all employ a variety of coping mechanisms (to various degrees of helpfulness or healthfulness) to help us through our day-to-day lives.

These differences in physical, emotional, and mental ability in turn impact what skills and talents we're drawn to or cultivate. Someone on the autism spectrum who finds emotional connection difficult or impossible might thrive on intense focus and in-depth research, while someone who is plagued by bipolar disorder might be able to tap into parallel wells of creativity and emotion and produce a beautiful piece of art. Someone with a hearing impairment might steer away from career opportunities that rely on their ears - or might attempt a career as a musician anyway, just for the challenge. Someone without arms might face having to learn how to do everyday tasks with their feet or teeth, and end up having better balance and control and of their muscles than someone without the same physical limitations.

We are stronger when we work together. We all have at least one limitation or another, and we all have something (or more than one something) that we can do well. We have different abilities and different ways of approaching the same problem. When we help each other out, we can accomplish great things.

Our physical, emotional, and mental abilities comprise part of who we are, and we do what we do because of who we are. But, we are also not only our physical, emotional, and mental abilities. We transcend these characteristics, just like we can transcend our race, our gender, our sexuality, our religion, and our class. I am a straight, white, atheist, middle-class female, with the beginnings of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, using therapy to work on her emotional/mental health - and yet, I am also more than just the sum of those individual parts. I am first and foremost a human, just like everyone else. And we all deserve to be treated as such. To repeat - regardless of how we live our lives, we are all people who still deserve to be respected and treated with dignity, people who deserve to have their voices heard, and people who have a lot to offer the world back in return.

Intersectionality of Class

Intersectionality refers to the fact that there are often overlapping cross-sections of people with multiple disadvantages. This is especially true when considering social class. 

Consider the following statistics:

• 14.8% of females live in poverty, compared to 12.2% of males.

• Gender differences are more pronounced for the elderly, with 10.3% of elderly women and 7% of elderly men living under the poverty threshold.

• 26.6% of Native Americans, 24.1% of African-Americans, 21.4% of Hispanic-Americans, and 11.4% of Asian-Americans live in poverty, compared to 9.1% of whites not of Hispanic origin.

• 28.5% of people with a disability live below the poverty line.

• Somewhere between 20-40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT, compared to approximately 10% of the population at large.

• Children raised by same-sex couples have poverty rates twice those of children in heterosexual married couple households.

• Transgender individuals are four times as likely to have a household income under $10,000 and twice as likely to be unemployed as a cisgendered person. Furthermore, almost one in five report being homeless at some point in their lives.

• 24% of lesbians and bisexual women are poor, compared to 19% of heterosexual women.

• African-American same-sex couples are roughly three times more likely to live in poverty than white same-sex couples

(Statistics sources came from here and here.)

[Side Note on Religion: Religion is one category that does not necessarily fit this pattern in the U.S.; in fact, according to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Jewish people ranked as the most financially successful religious group in the U.S., with 44% of Jewish people living in households with incomes of at least $100,000 - followed by Hindu (36%), Episcopalians (35%) and Presbyterians (32%). There is a similar correlation between education and income, which probably accounts for this anomaly - about 77% of American Hindus have at least an undergraduate degree, followed by Jews (59%), Anglican (59%), Episcopalians (56%) and Presbyterians (47%). (Source)  

Rates on Muslim-Americans with regards to wealth are less clear - in part because U.S. Muslims as a group tend to have a high level of education (which might indicate increased wealth), and because Muslims in the U.S. are a very diverse group, many subcategories of which fall into other minority groups (which might indicate greater instances of poverty). It is estimated that more than 60% of U.S. Muslims are immigrants (largely from South Asia, but also from Arab nations), and of those, up to about 30% are not U.S. citizens. Of native-born U.S. Muslims, about 60% are African-Americans. Though there are clear differences between the style of worship used by immigrants and by African-Americans, the truth is that both groups may face discrimination for their ethnicity/race; it is therefore hard to determine how much of the rate of Muslims in poverty might be impacted by their religion, and not from other factors. The only concrete statistics I could find only compares Muslims in the U.S. to Muslims in Western Europe, where many have seen significant issues with poverty and integration. A 2007 Pew poll found that just 2% of U.S. Muslims are in the lowest income bracket, while Muslims in Britain, France, and Germany made up around 20% of those countries' low-income populations. (Source)]

In general (religion not withstanding - see note above), the more disadvantages someone has in other areas (race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc.), the more likely they are to also struggle with their financial situation. If our goal is to lessen the economic inequality in this nation, looking at how class intersects other categories can therefore lead us to some profound conclusions, and lead us into some helpful solutions. 

Once we realize how many women live in poverty, for instance, it's easier to see how so-called "women's issues" (like better sex and reproductive education, greater access to women's health care, more comprehensive maternity leave policies, and addressing the persistent gender wage gap) are actually economic issues that could help alleviate some of the wealth disparity in this nation and rise countless women out of dire financial hardship.

Better access to and higher quality health care would also help alleviate the financial burden of many disabled Americans. Anti-discrimination policies in the workplace, handicapped accessible public transit, work environments that allow for flexible scheduling, and the destigmatization of mental illness would also help the countless Americans who suffer with any myriad of chronic diseases.

Similarly, pushing for marriage and job equality for homosexual couples are important economic steps to ensure that their families have the same legal protections as heterosexual couples, and that no one will face job discrimination for their sexual preferences. Better laws regarding public restroom usage would create more safe spaces for transgender individuals, and reform regarding workplace discrimination would create more job opportunities.

Affirmative action policies at universities are implemented for comparable reasons - to allow more African-Americans or Native Americans access to higher education (and, in turn, higher economic status). 

There is no specific amount of poor people the United States is required to have; it is not the case that lifting African-Americans or Native Americans or LGBT individuals or disabled Americans or women out of poverty will create a sinkhole that will suck other groups into lower social classes in their stead. Helping these subsections of poor people decreases the general rate of poverty in this country, and can only be a good thing for the economy of our nation. 

Before I conclude this blog post, I would remise if I didn't make one final point - I am married to a statistician/actuary, after all - and that point is this:

The above statistics show a correlation between certain subgroups and lower income brackets. Do not confuse correlation with causation. It is not a simple cause-and-effect situation; in fact, they each tend to exacerbate the other.

When someone lacks institutionalized privilege in these other categories (all of which are completely outside of someone's control), it can be harder to earn a steady income, be accepted into higher education programs, secure housing in good neighborhoods, have access to community amenities, feel safe working irregular job hours or taking public transportation, make networking connections, have access to quality health care services, see their families and unions protected by legal and economic safeguards, or have self-confidence in their abilities. All of those things, in turn, can contribute to poverty. 

Conversely, when certain groups of people are continually associated with lower class status, it can reinforce negative stereotypes and discrimination towards those groups. These include stereotypes that people of color are lazy (because many of them live in poverty, and must, therefore, have been unwilling to put in the effort necessary to pull themselves out of it) or violent (because many of them live in poor, crowded, urban areas, where there is also a higher instance of crime).

Such gross generalizations, while rooted in a very real truth that intersectionality is a serious problem, also do the disservice of discussing large groups of people as if they were homogenous. Thinking in such absolutes is not only incorrect but deeply concerning, because it encourages segregation and "othering" - viewing or treating certain groups of people as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself. Though many people living in poverty are people of color, not all people of color are poor or live in poor neighborhoods, and many people who are poor or live in poor neighborhoods are actually white. To believe or talk as if "people of color" and "people living in poverty" are synonymous is to perpetuate dangerous misrepresentation. 

Indeed, many people in power who want to uphold the current systems of inequality to ensure they maintain their own privileged standing purposefully make these generalizations as a fear-mongering tactic. Such liars don't even require facts to lay a tenuous foundation for their claims, insisting for instance that "all Muslims are terrorists" or "all homosexuals/transgendered persons are pedophiles/rapists" even when the data proves that it is more likely for a non-Muslim to be a terrorist in this country, and for a pedophile or rapist to identify and present as heterosexual and cisgendered.

It is important, therefore, to balance careful consideration of harmful stereotyping against one's desire to recognize the intersectionality of class and take concrete steps towards addressing the unique problems faced by people who lack privilege in more than one area of their lives. We need to keep the above statistics in mind - but also not fall into the trap of misinterpreting them, misrepresenting them, or assuming that correlation implies a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

Capitalism and the Growing Disparity Between the Rich and the Poor

Class and Ability are interesting categories to consider, because both are rather changeable, not necessarily staying static throughout our lives. Unless someone is very poor or very wealthy (in which case, their station may be less likely to change), nearly all of us experience at least minor fluctuations in social class as we grow up, get jobs, move, start families, retire, and age. 

The changes (a jump from lower-middle class to decidedly middle-class, for instance) may be subtle to others, but are often quite recognizable to us. Money is security, and it can change the way we behave and the risks we feel comfortable taking - which in turn might change the way others treat us, even if they don't know exactly how much money we have to our name. Money also offers opportunities (resources, education, networking) that open more doors for us - which can boost our self-esteem and sense of worth. In contrast, constantly worrying about having enough money can lead to heightened generalized anxiety and compromise our self-confidence. Such worries might prompt us to take on more than we can handle, stretching ourselves thin as we attempt to earn more - or perhaps disillusion and discourage us, wearing ourselves out before we even get out of bed in the morning and preventing us from work.

Most of those of us living in the middle class have probably, at some point in our lives, experienced both of these (though maybe not quite to such extremes). There might be a period of time when we have enough cash coming in, or relatively low expenses, or a combination of the two - and as a result, we not only earn enough to live off of, but enough to start saving a bit. Those who don't experience this in adulthood often experienced it as children - even when a family is poorer, it is usually the adults who make sacrifices and carry the brunt of the money anxiety; they do their best to ensure that their children are taken care of or kept in the dark from the extent of their poverty for as long as possible. During this period of our lives (whenever it may occur), we don't worry as much about the costs of goods and services, we feel safe and secure and provided for, and we believe in possibilities - that we can be anything when we grow up, that we can decide between many different options for how to spend our leisure time, and that various opportunities will be readily available to us.

But there are also times when the opposite is true. Often we experience these financial slumps when we leave home, go to college or start a trade, and try to provide for ourselves for the first time. Even if our parents are willing and able to assist us financially, we might try not to rely on them too much; we wish to assert our independence. Or it might happen with job fluctuations - whether caused by an economic repression or more personal decisions, such as going from a two-income family to a one-income family so that one parent can stay home to take care of young children. Or it might happen at the end of our careers, when we retire and lose the steady paycheck we'd grown used to for the last several decades. Sudden changes in health can also cause undo financial hardship - in addition to the cost of medical expenses, there might be a loss in the ability to work as many hours, or at all.

These types of changes to one's finances are common and expected - for many of us, they are a part of life.

But for the very wealthy or the very poor, the situation is often different. Even when someone from a wealthy family loses a job or changes careers, even when they grow their families, make poor investment decisions, or fall sick, and even when the country goes through an economic recession, they are relatively unaffected. They might occasionally worry more about money than they used to, but their worries are "what if" anxieties - what if, god forbid, their financial situation was worse? 

And for the very poor, there are limited opportunities to rise out of their poverty. How can they earn a college degree if they can't afford the tuition, and their family's credit is too low to get a decent loan? How can they pay off that loan, if they do get one, when it takes them twice as long to complete their degree (because they're working multiple jobs in the meantime), and the job pickings are slim once they do finally graduate? How can they even be accepted into college in the first place, if they can't afford the application fees, or the standardized exam fees to take the SAT or ACT, or if having to take exhausting minimum wage jobs in high school managed to help support their families (at least a little), but ruined their high school GPA in the process?

And how will they rise up in their careers, to a position with a higher salary, if they don't have that degree? Even jobs that don't require college often require internships or years of low-wage labor experience before higher positions open up - and it's hard to devote those years to earning lower wage if someone needs more money immediately. They can't volunteer to work extra hours and put in more face time at one job if they have to run off to work their second job instead; when someone is spread thin like that, it's hard to ever move up. They sacrifice the potential for more money in the future for enough money to live off of in the present; it's not a sacrifice they even have a choice over, but one that is essentially made for them, if they want to survive. No one can plan for the future when the present is already a struggle.

Worse yet, even if someone from a very poor family does manage to earn a college degree, pay off some debt, earn a good credit score, and/or land a secure job with a reasonable salary - the benefits are often short-lived. They may funnel their extra money into helping other family members or friends also rise out of poverty, driven by a sense of community and fixing problems they see in the present (instead of saving for their own future), because that's all they've ever done or witnessed others doing. Or they may finally get their heads above water - just to experience one of those "life happens" events that threaten to drown them again, like a chronic illness, a growing family, inheriting a family member's debt, or a sudden economic downturn that threatens the job security they've stumbled into.

The wealthy have extra income which they can invest - which leads to more income, which they can also invest. Meanwhile, the poor are constantly struggling just to make enough to provide basic necessities for their families - and any change in their life circumstances can make that struggle instantly worse. And so the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. To top it off, many middle-income level jobs are on the decline (according to NBC news), thanks to automation, outsourcing, and wage erosion. 

There is a growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the U.S. - to the point where the middle class may disappear altogether. 

According to ThinkProgress, the wealth disparity between upper and middle income Americans has hit a record high. Upper-income families are almost seven times wealthier than middle-income families, and seventy times wealthier than lower-income families. Americans that make up the top 0.1% now have more monetary worth than the entire bottom 90%. 

Investopedia further explains that in the U.S., 26% of Americans are classified as lower income, 59% as middle income, and 15% as upper income - while in other countries, the middle class is larger (with percents in the 70s-80s). Their data comes from a Pew research report, which concluded that this decline of the middle class and the accompanying rise in income inequality presents an adverse climate for economic growth.

In theory, there is an easy solution to this inequality. The rich could part with more of their money, bolstering those in poverty. Indeed, nearly every culture/religion around the world encourages such compassion - teaching that earthly riches are temporal and not the proper thing on which to hang our sense of worth, and cautioning against the love of money or failing to share our wealth with those who need it.

Here are just a sampling of such advice:

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." - 1 Timothy 6:10

"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you." - Leviticus 23:22 

"The fool is his own enemy. Seeking wealth, he destroys himself. Seek rather the other shore." - Buddha 

"And know that your worldly goods...are but a trial and a temptation, and that with God there is tremendous reward." - Qu'ran, An-Anfal 8:28 

"Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." - Luke 12:15 

"Money has never made man happy, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants." - Benjamin Franklin 

"No one can serve two masters...You cannot serve both God and Money." - Matthew 6:24 

"Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity." - Mahatma Gandhi  

"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." - Bob Dylan

"Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go." - Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 

"To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace." - Confucius, The Analects 

"Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land." - Deuteronomy 15:11 

"Hillel used to say, The more tzedakah [charity], the more shalom [peace]." - Pirkei Avot 2:8 

"Exult not in thy wealth, for, verily, God does not love those who exult in things!... Do good unto others as God has done good unto thee." - Qu'ran, Al-Qasas 28-76-77  

"The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." - Proverbs 22:9 

"At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made... We will be judged by 'I was hungry, and you have me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.'" - Mother Theresa (quoting the Bible, Matthew 25:35)

"A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit." - Buddha 

"If a person closes his eyes to avoid giving charity, it is as if he committed idolatry." - Talmud, Ketuvot 68a 

"If the worldly goods which you have acquired, and the commerce whereof you fear a decline, and the dwellings in which you take pleasure - if all these are dearer to you than God... [know that] God does not grace iniquitous folk with His guidance." - Qu'ran, At-Tauba 9:24 

"The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love." - Pope Francis

"As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled." - Victor Hugo 

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." - Matthew 19:24 

But these are only words - and not words that our current government lives by.

The capitalist U.S. government allows but does not require those with access wealth to share it. It maintains that it is up to people whether or not they obey those cultural/religious teachings and do their part. On the surface, this doesn't seem so heartless (even if it is passing the buck a little - pun intended). But throughout history, the U.S. government has also actively offered alternatives to those cultural/religious teachings in such a way that it seems to actually encourage our current uneven distribution of wealth - and that is a problem.

In this country, we have what we call the American Dream, which suggests that America is a land of bountiful opportunities ripe for the picking. With so many chances for people to get ahead, make names for themselves, and provide for their families, the logic goes that it would take a really unmotivated or unskilled person not to find something available to them. Furthermore, the American Dream asserts that everyone has the same goals. We all want to earn a lot of money (even if it's at a job we hate), settle down, buy a house with a white picket fence, and start a family with 2.4 children (or whatever the going average is at any given time).

Of course, neither of those points is true - but the mythology remains an engrained part of our society. We're taught optimism by our parents and schoolteachers who tell us we can be anything we want to be when we grow up - and also impart their biases about what "good" professions are to pursue, or what goals we "should" be working toward. Many of these adults should have enough life experience under their belts to know that life isn't always fair, and those things are not always possible (or desired) - and yet they perpetuate this myth anyway, perhaps because they want desperately to believe that, for the next generation, it may yet be true. 

Then, when we reach adulthood (or adolescence - for a lot of this now starts in high school and even middle school), we start to feel the pressures of competition. We begin to recognize that there are opportunities - but they're limited, and only given to the worthiest (or luckiest). We compare ourselves to our peers and try to figure out how we measure up. We grow stressed and anxious when things don't work out how we were promised they would be. Social media only perpetuates this competition - never has it been so easy to compare where we are in our lives with where our peers are in theirs, on a global scale. 

Even if we've consciously decided not to prioritize the things the American Dream tells us to prioritize (money, marriage, children), we might feel inadequate when we look at other people who have "accomplished" these things. We might feel like we've fallen behind our peers, or feel like we have a lower worth as a person, simply because we aren't doing the sorts of things we "should" be doing.

Over the years, the government has encouraged this notion of the American Dream, suggesting that our choices and actions can "earn" us certain privileges. If we all work hard enough - and have enough luck to survive - we're sure to earn ourselves a better life. Anything is possible. The image of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, as if sheer determination and relentless hard work was sufficient to rise above poverty, is a prevalent one. This is certainly what many immigrants believed (and still believe), and why many of them wanted to come to America.

The problem (well, one of the problems) is that the American Dream doesn't live in a vacuum. It has to fight with another, somewhat conflicting American ideal - one that puts considerable weight on the family someone was born into and the unchangeable characteristics they were prescribed at birth.

Both of these ideas were built right into our Declaration of Independence, in a singular phrase: "All men are created equal." On the surface, this suggests that everything is equally possible for everyone - that this is a land of opportunity, prosperity, and promise. But what those words say on the surface and what they actually meant at the time is another matter. For one thing, "all men" did not include women; for another, it was commonly accepted that "men" meant only white, land-owning men. So, all men were created equal - but only if they were already born with some status to begin with.

The idea of Manifest Destiny famously asserted that wealth, land, and privilege were entitlements one earned by the simple virtue of being an American (or, at least, a white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied, hard-working American). Basically a giant game of calling shotgun or commenting "First!" on a YouTube video, Manifest Destiny made it legal for any citizen to claim land ownership just by showing up first and staking a claim. (Never mind that Native Americans were already using the land, or that altering the landscape might change the ecosystem in the area. Whatever a white, male citizen wanted, he could have. Everyone else be damned.)

Systems of slave labor - and inequalities of race and gender that continue into the present - further proved that the American Dream was really only available to a select few, at least initially. People of color were not given the right to vote, a hallmark of citizenship, until 1870; women were not granted suffrage until even later - 1920. (And those dates don't even count the Jim Crow laws and other methods that persist to this day which attempt to disenfranchise people on the basis on race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability and social class.) 

Eventually, laws were set forward to get rid of some of the legal discrimination that was happening - but very few laws were changed to give greater access to the same advantages that white men have had for centuries, and people who already had those privileges refused (and continue to refuse) to see the difference.

Today, it is expected that the prosperity and promise of American Dream is open to everyone, simply because many forms of discrimination are no longer legal. This simplified view neglects to see the weight of historical disadvantages, but it does come from a grain of truth. Everyone theoretically has equal access to opportunities now, and are often treated as equals - men and women, whites and people of color, heterosexuals and homosexuals and bisexuals/pansexuals. The same doors are open for everyone - and if that's the case, doesn't it follow that it would be the fault of the individual for not choosing to go through them?

I have a lot to say on the subject of choice - and already said it, in this previous post on religious discrimination. The main point is twofold:

1.) We don't all actually have the same access to choice. For example, a person living in poverty might seem to be presented with the same opportunity as a rich person, but the latter is given the key to unlock the door, while the former is presented with no key, extra security, and an unpickable lock.

And 2.) Even if we did all have access to the same opportunities, on an equal scale, not all people would (or should) make the same choices. Despite what the American dream says, we don't all want a job that makes a six-figure salary. Some of us prioritize finding a field that we love working in, or prioritize leisure and family time and strive for the sort of work-life balance that makes earning six-figures unlikely. These people don't deserve to live in poverty, unable to support their families, just because they prefer working as a writer or schoolteacher to working as a lawyer or anesthesiologist.  

Yet, many people in this country (and around the world) neglect to understand these points, or refuse to believe them. The practice of poverty-shaming is alive and well. Many people insist that all doors are openable to every person (even if they allow that some doors are harder to open for some), and that it is a poor person's fault for being poor. They made the wrong decisions, prioritized the wrong things, or didn't work hard enough.

And so, many people with wealth to spare do not heed the age-old advice of leaders, clerics, writers, moralists, and orators that we read above. They only marginally support the lower classes, or not at all.

They take the view of our capitalistic society, which promotes the individual over the community, and say, "What's in it for me to help others?" and "Why should I have to support someone else's lifestyle? What does anyone else's situation have to do with my situation?"

Or they take the beliefs we are fed that wealthy people are deserving of their wealth, and worked hard to earn it, and say, "It won't teach the lower classes the value of hard work if we just handout freebies" or "What makes them think they're entitled to things for free that I had to work hard to earn?"

Some wealthy individuals do indeed work hard - but poor people work hard, too, and if effort was all that was required, there would be less discrepancy in wealth. Those with wealth work hard and have privileges that support them financially, make their hard work go farther, and make their lives easier. This fact is too often glossed over - partly because no one with privilege wants to believe they have privilege, and partly because our government seems to support such views. Our government does not legally require the wealthy to share their wealth (through taxes and universal care programs), and in fact often caters to the ego of the wealthy, giving them ready-made excuses for not aiding those who need financial support.

People will not always do what's best for their communities - especially when they are brought up with conflicting views. We give lip service to "money is the root of all evil," but at the end of the day, we are taught to value ourselves and other people based on the amount of money they have, or earn, or spend. We may want to be compassionate - but we also want to have value and be valued. We want our hard work to be rewarded; we want to believe that hard work is always rewarded. We want to believe we are in charge of our own destinies, and that we've earned whatever success comes our way. 

Thinking these things doesn't make someone a bad person. We all have these thoughts. But the trick is to consider these thoughts rationally to determine if they are actually true - or at least "true enough" to let them influence our actions. Can two people put in an equal effort, yet achieve different results? Is it possible that we have only some control of our own destinies? Or that people with privilege have more control over their lives than people without privilege?

Putting effort into imagining ourselves in other people's situations is another good tactic. Maybe it is true that our hard work has always been rewarded, and things just seem to work out for us - but is that the case for everyone? How much more difficult would our lives be if we hadn't had access to a quality education and transportation, or grown up well-fed and with plenty of leisure time to play and explore our world as a child? How much more difficult would our lives be if we or someone in our families had a chronic illness that required a lot of money and time to care for? Consider what other people go through, and how their experiences might differ from your own.

Still, it's hard to do such exercises all the time, especially if someone doesn't regularly interact with people in more unfortunate circumstances. Is it really a good idea to continue to rely on humanity's compassion for others? Or would it be better if the government increased taxes on the wealthy to better support the lower classes? 

We have to do something. We've tried these experiments of "let the wealthy do what they think is best" and "humans will do what's right on their own even if they aren't obligated to do so" for a long time already, and it's obvious that they are not enough.

I'm clearly not alone in this train of thought. According (once again) to ThinkProgress, two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied with the current unequal wealth distribution in this country, with roughly the same number believing the federal government should play a role in guiding the transition toward a more equitable society.

"Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people." - Economist Janet Yellen 

"Overcoming poverty... is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life." - Nelson Mandela  

"Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system." - Martin Luther King Jr.  

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." - Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis 

Socialism requires higher taxes - but those taxes would be used to try to level the playing field, actually make something like the American Dream more possible for everyone who wants to pursue it, and compensate for historical discrimination. We all benefit from amenities like well-funded and maintained streets and bridges, mass transit systems, public schools, and libraries - but those amenities necessarily come with a price tag. Why couldn't we also benefit from universal health care, homeless shelters, food stamp programs, reproductive health education, parental leave, and other programs that other (more socialist) countries have already successfully implemented? It's certainly something to consider.

In the meantime, while we work toward bolstering the lower classes and making sure everyone has their basic necessities provided for, it would do for all of us to remember that we are more than our bank accounts. We don't deserve wealth or poverty because of who we are as a person, how hard we've worked, or our family heritage. But we do deserve respect and compassion just by virtue of being human. Let's all be kind and considerate to people of all social classes, instead of demonizing each other out of fear, jealousy, misunderstanding, or tradition.