The Privilege of Righteous Indignation
A fire survivor has been carrying around a relief check for a couple weeks. It can’t be cashed because her ID burned in the fire, and it is taking weeks into months to get a replacement. Meanwhile, she can’t pay her car insurance or pick up meds for herself and her kids. She spends her time waiting at the laundromat, on the phone with Red Cross trying to find shelter for a friend, and working nights cleaning office buildings for cash to buy food.
I went with her to two banks today looking for solutions to cash her much needed check. Thankfully, a few behind-the-scenes phone calls got the check processed. But the “rules” didn’t allow her to receive her money. Not without an ID, a piece of paper which says she’s real. Human.
It is really, really expensive and time-consuming to be poor.
We’ve been on the ledge enough times to glimpse the exponential cost (both time and money) of late fees, laundromats, last minute corner-market grocery runs and phone call after phone call after phone call trying to make progress and just get someone on the phone to help straighten out one mix-up.
The systems are setup to incentivize cash flow and large deposits. In doing so, even if unintentionally, they penalize those with less.
It’s tempting to rebuke, “Well why didn’t you call, why didn’t you push and demand, why didn’t you do this or that?” But when? And with what? And who would listen?
When the bank teller says no…
Unless you get to be the privileged, angry, white woman with a community leader on speed dial, how can you really be expected to do more than walk out the door and get back in your car? With no cash.
I’ve always known it…. In the last few years, it’s become clearer.
But never in my life have I been so aware of the benefit and pure gift of righteous indignation as in these last two months helping with fire relief.
I get to and can demand what I want and what I need. The world is built for me. I know it. I use it.
This fact is not a given. It is not so easy, for most of the world.
What if — before taking office, every new lawmaker, city council member, commissioner was required to spend at two weeks seeking resources on their own — without the help of family and friends?
Then what?
How might policies, and the speed at which they are enacted, change?
♡ Annie
Originally published at http://www.jomafilms.com on December 7, 2020.