Mickey Schulz has graciously offered to tell me how rich people view folks from less privileged strata. She asked for it to be on a new post, and I figured I might as well host.
Why I need this: My grantparents went to college, my parents have post-graduate degrees. So do I. Our household income puts my household comfortably in the upper 20%. So, I need to be reminded how I come across and of my privilege.
So, without further adieu: Mickey?
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ReplyDeleteOk, so for years I managed a grad program for dentists in Prosthodontics (bridges, implants, dentures, crowns technically). A lot of our students were from wealthy families here in the US or from abroad. And a lot of our patients, because we are a teaching college and have lower price clinics (theoretically), we would get a lot of peole with really, really bad teeth. There were people who, like my Dad, just let them go because they needed the money for other things, like rent, food, bills, with the plan to get dentures when they were older. A lot of our patients had saved up for YEARS to be able to get dentures eventually. We got a fair number of former junkies, people with genetic disorders and no insurance, or Medicaid/care, etc... And at least once a year I'd overhear one of my students, usually after doing their rotation at the local "charity" hospital that my university owns, talking about the state of someone's teeth.
ReplyDelete"It's not like toothbrushes and toothpaste are THAT expensive. I guess some people just have other priorities." Cue long-suffering sigh. The tone of voice would frequently be dripping with condescension and scorn because everyone knows that poor people are poor because they've done something to deserve it, or they're bad with money, or...
At this point I would interject with, "Yeah, different priorities, like rent and food, possbily diapers and formula for a baby."
These kids had, literally, never been in a place where the cost of toothpaste could mean they couldn't eat or pay rent.
I have been in that place. I spent much of my childhood in that place. I remember eating condiment sandwiches (ketchup, mustard, Miracle Whip) because that was all we had. Hell, my dad still hoards fast food condiment packets because sometimes you need those stashes. (We had a family friend who managed a McDonalds who gave us a discount.)
I grew up thinking walking or biking two or more miles to do a thing or get something wasn't unusual. Because frequently the choice was gas money or milk. And god as my witness I will never drink powdered milk again as long as I live. I will die first.
But anyway, another talk I had with one of my students was in response to the "I don't understand why people don't just go to the dentist more often!" rant.
"I went to dentist once before the age of 19, when my wisdom teeth got so infected I couldn't open my jaw so I HAD to."
My student blinked at me for a second, then said, "But, but you went to COLLEGE!"
"Yeah, and I'll be paying that back to the government until I die, likely." On the heels of that I gave the lecture about how even with dental insurance, and trust me the insurance here at the university is kind of the gold standard, regular dentist appointments are out of reach financially for most of America.
So, yeah, a lot of the wealthier, legacy students had zero idea that you could grow up poor and go to college, or would want to, that dental appointments are financially out of reach for a lot of people, and that a lot of people live in a place where the cost of a toothbrush and toothpaste might make them homeless.
To them the poor health choices of the poor are due entirely to a refusal to take care of their own bodies. These are the same people who tut-tut about the "obesity epidemic" and then deny that food deserts are a thing. They don't recognize that on what a poor person gets on foodstamps/SNAP or TANF, that things like box macaroni and cheese cost less and provide a greater caloric load than the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that they could get for the same amount of money.
"Well, if they just learned to cook?"
They don't recognize the barriers to cooking a lot of folks have. For some people the choice is heat up some processed crap and be able to spend a precious hour or two with their kids between jobs, or relax a little, or have time to eat at a table instead of bolting it down in the car while driving to a second job.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a lot of shitty apartments have shitty appliances, and when you're poor and your credit's shit, you wind up living in sketchy places where they'll LET you. The oven/stove may not work, it may be dangerous to use (bare wires, lots of things can make stoves dangerous).
And then there's the matter of equipment. No one just has pots and pans, and if you're living at a point where you may well have to move your shit on the bus in garbage bags, or stuff everything you own into your busted ass car that you hope will last long enough for you to save up enough to buy another busted ass car STUFF is a detriment. But, at the same time, you're also terrified to get rid of anything even if it's broken because you don't know if you'll ever be able to replace it.
Shopping in places like Costco is also a matter of access. Are you near one? Do you have a car or a friend with a car big enough to haul bales of toilet paper and 55 gallon drums of mayonnaise? Can you afford the yearly membership?
This is all kind of the long way of saying: A lot of wealthy people think poor people are poor and have shit health because they're stupid, weak, have no impulse control, and don't understand money. That they're too stupid, ignorant or lazy to realize that "these things have consequences."
They also think that people who are or opt to work for drug dealers are lazy or stupid... They don't recognize the barriers to well-paying jobs that are based on unconscious biases. Is someone's teeth a mess because they were homeless, have bad genetics and no insurance, etc? Well, they won't get hired the majority of the time, especially for public facing jobs "because they don't take care with their appearance."
If someone's a POC, there are TONS of studies about the unconscious biases in this country, so add a level of difficulty there.
If they can't afford nice clothes, see above re: appearance.
Sometimes you work for drug dealers because you're a cocky kid who thinks you're untouchable. And sometimes you do it because it beats working at least two jobs where you'll get treated as subhuman by your bosses and customers alike.
This goes double for sex-work, both legal and illegal.
I've also been congratulated on "rising above my upbringing/childhood." I've had people shocked that I like, listen to and like listening to classical music, that I like opera, that I read, that I went to college, that I went to grad school (going to financially regret THAT decision for the rest of my life). My grad advisor didn't understand why I wouldn't submit a paper to present at a Russian History conference in Russia. Largely because I wouldn't have been able to get there.
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, and just so you know, Medicaid/care doesn't pay for crowns or fillings. They will pay to have your teeth pulled and replaced with dentures.
ReplyDeleteThis may be different for kids, but our patients were all adults, with the notable exception of one or two Ectodermal Dysplasia patients.
Now, bear in mind, I can only really talk about my experiences as a poor white kid. I encourage you to seek out blogs of people of color who can talk about these issues as they affect them.
ReplyDeleteWilliam, if you're interested in the incentives and barriers facing the very poor in a global context, I highly recommend Poor Economics, by Bannerjee and Dupree.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-Poverty/dp/1610390938
Mickey, thanks for posting. The stuff you said about Medicaid was a good reminder about how many things that purport to be individual failures are actually failures of public policy to meet people's needs.
This was an interesting read about the current state of public coverage for dental care: macpac.gov - www.macpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Medicaid-Coverage-of-Dental-Benefits-for-Adults.pdf
TLDR:
Federal law requires states to provide uncapped and comprehensive dental coverage for medicaid users under 21. But there is no federal medicaid requirement for adult dental coverage. Half of states currently cover preventative dental care like checkups and cleanings for adults. Dental coverage tends to fluctuate with state budgets, with predictably bad results.
One barrier preventing medicaid users from accessing dental care is that there is a shortage of dentists willing to take medicaid.
Yes, a lot of dentists don't take Medicaid. The school does, but the way the poor are being pushed out of the city and into the suburbs or up to Everett or down to Tacoma, it can be difficult to get in, especially for the more complex cases that require multiple visits, and specialists.
ReplyDeleteWe do have a few County run dental clinics, but they're booked out MONTHS in advance, and burn out dentists as soon as they hire them. They also don't pay much for those who took out loans and are trying to pay them back. And the legacy kids aren't interested in working in those places.
The public hospital that does sliding scale that is attached to my university is booked out months for regular care, and the wait for dental emergencies is hours. Often they don't do more than prescribe antibiotics for abcesses and tell them to either wait the 3-9 months for an appt or find another dentist.
Mickey Schulz There's lots of dental insurance that will only pay for extractions, too. My wife's tooth problems have taught us a LOT about this. Ugh! Thanks for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteAlso, dental is only covered under Medicaid because a 12 year old died of a dental abcess in 2007.
ReplyDelete> a 12 year old died of a dental abcess in 2007.
ReplyDeleteFuuuuuuuck
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/13/healthcare-gap-how-can-a-child-die-of-toothache-in-the-us
ReplyDelete(to be clear: I believed you. Thanks for the article)
ReplyDelete(meant to post the link in the comment in the first place)
ReplyDeleteI can't say I'm surprised.... I grew up in a working class family... I've seen the pay stubs my dad had from my childhood when he was working 3 jobs (one days, one PT nights and one doing catering or playing in a wedding band on weekends; because his FT job earned him a whopping $80 a week take home and no benefits until I was 6 or 8 years old). This for a family of 4.
ReplyDeleteI remember the scarcity of my childhood, and many a meal that was pasta, sandwiches that were pickles and mayo, etc.
There was no Federal Health care for Children in the 1960s when I grew up.
I got my first official job at 15 (Summer Stock Theater Asst Manager for Live Theater at a local college, because my Drama Teacher pulled some strings for me...) and worked retail the rest of the year. I my theater work as it paid a lot better than retail, and we got Fed for Free between the matinees on Sat/Sun by one of the show sponsors. I developed an actors stomach in those days, a Feast/Famine approach to food, especially protein.
Dental care was spotty... and then when I moved out was impossible for nearly a decade as no job I got had insurance and very few dentists wanted to just take cash in those days. And I had the ticking time bomb of 6 impacted wisdom teeth thanks to a genetic mutation that ran on one side of my family.
My mother never graduated High School. My Father did, and then was in the Navy before he came out and got married, and used his Benefits to get a tech school education at Wentworth to become a Machinist (he had been an engineer's mate in the Navy) and later a tool and die maker (eventually for R&D in aircraft parts).
Yeah, right around that time, one of my dentists testified as an expert witness in a malpractice case against a dentist in Yakima where the same thing happened. The kid saw a dentist, but he didn't appopriatetly treat the child. Probably because the parents couldn't afford it. It was a migrant farm worker family.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was super lucky my dad was in the military while dependents still got full medical/dental/vision benefits for free (policy changed sometime around high school).
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started on the dentists who oppose the "Enhanced Dental Assistant" program. New Zealand and one of the Canadian provinces have this. Dental assistants who can fill cavities and do simple extractions for underserved areas.
ReplyDeleteBut listening to some of the faculty here, who had "cadillac" private practices talk as though these positions would rob them of their livelihoods... And I'm talking specialists, so there was NOTHING that they did that these Enhanced Dental Assistants could do.
Also, they were going to primarily seed them into the Indian Reservations, Alaska, Eastern Washington. You know, places these assholes wouldn't set up a practice on a bet.
When I was 10 we moved to Boise, ID because my Dad got a better job, and finally managed to claw our way up to middle class, instead of hovering on that upper working class/lower middle class border.
ReplyDeleteBut we still didn't see the dentist, and rarely went to the doctor. Habit.
My Dad technically had a "white collar job," as a Senior Draftsman at an engineering firm (no degree). But that friend who managed a McDonalds, he also worked with my Dad at that firm in the same position, and had taken the McDonald's job to make ends meet. This is in the 1970s. Because my family were very, ahem, redneck proud, there was no way in hell they would apply for public assistance. I earned free lunch and breakfast by selling milk for the cafeteria ladies at breakfast and lunch, because I was good at math.
A large reason why we were so damn broke was because my parents had bought a house. BUT that house also saved us, because it came as an estate sale with a fully stocked bomb shelter. Hence the powdered milk.
I did not know what modern Campbell's labels looked like until we moved away (and worked our way through the rest of the canned goods that my parents moved with us).
I will never, ever, eat tuna casserole again as long as I live. The smell makes me gag.
Dad talks about how the Engineering club at his job would take field trips through factories, and they did the local hot dog factory. At the end of the tour, they'd give you a package of hot dogs. A lot of the guys wanted to refuse theirs after what they'd seen, but Dad told them to take them, and they could give them to him, because he had kids to feed, damn it. And you don't pass up free food.
Mickey Schulz Yeah Humans have been filling each others teeth for 13000 years atlasobscura.com - Found: A 13,000-Year-Old Dental Filling Made of Bitumen - Atlas Obscura We should have more programs for people to learn how to do this skill without full dentistry. More like and EMT or Nurse Prac for dental care.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I have repeatedly bumped into over and over as a low income adult (which I can't rightfully call myself anymore but was for the majority of my adult life) who ended up befriending people from more privileged backgrounds was the way they would unwittingly socially freeze you out by making plans that required money you didn't have. Expensive trips, fancy restaurants, scotch tastings. And it's not easy refuse the invitation by saying, "I can't afford that." And then after a certain point you stop getting invited to anything because you've refused so many invitations.
ReplyDeleteNobody meant any harm, it just didn't occur to them that these are extravagant expenses for someone struggling to keep up with their bills.
Mickey Schulz - I remember you telling me about this like 10 years ago and it stuck with me.
ReplyDeleteI was on Medicaid and had to have a tooth extracted. The dentist told was bragging to me about how he serves the community by taking Medicaid, but he said it in an aggrieved tone and prepared to complain to me about how terrible those patients (of which I was one) were.
Bret Gillan Yeah, after awhile I just sucked it up and flat out told people, "We can't afford that."
ReplyDeleteA fair number of them decided to offer to pay for us, some just shrugged and there were no hard feelings. But yeah... We had a good friend marry someone we all kind of knew. And she insisted on a destination wedding in the Carribean. Shockingly, hardly any of the groom's friends made it.
I have a working class father and professional class mother, and these attitudes get so ingrained that my mother didn't fully understand what poverty does until she started doing social work for rehab centers and CASA. Even though she had married into a working class family that often skirted poverty. Even still I sometimes have to explain things to her, and I know that I haven't ever been actually poor in the US; I've been inordinately lucky and managed to maintain in various parts of the middle class (this actually puts me in the 1% of disabled people in the US, who are disproportionately poor.)
ReplyDeleteThat standing would have been gone if I'd been tossed on my ass for being non-gender conforming or bi. (I actually never came out to my dad about the latter, though the former was obvious to everyone, and have no idea how he would have taken it. My mom was chill when I eventually did but part of that was because I was in a long term relationship with a man she approved of. I'm not sure how that would have met if my now-spouse hadn't been a man.)
I call the benefit of being born middle class the invisible trampoline. I once unwittingly was in an A/B test where I was temping in the precariat at the same company with someone I knew out of work; he was male (actually a knock against doing clerical temp work) and working class. The economy tanked, and they cut him and kept me.
I ended up going into IT because I was always explaining computers to people on my temp jobs. He ended up homeless, and still coming to Sweetie's nickel ante poker nights for a while - and not telling us that even nickel ante was a stretch, because he was ashamed, and then quietly vanishing. "I'm too busy to come." I ran into him some years later and he told me what had happened.
He'd gotten housed through local homeless outreach by then, and was doing better, but he's the same age as me and looked fifteen years older than me at this point, and I've always looked older than my age. And he'd gotten the bad teeth that make people unemployable in so many places. He was the mirror image of what it looks like to not be born on the invisible trampoline. The alternate universe self with a less kind or oblivious family.
The invisible trampoline meant that when I couldn't afford dentistry from 17 to 25, I was okay because I'd had routine and preventive maintenance, and orthodontics to fix the worst flaws in my teeth, until partway through 17. I couldn't afford to have those impacted wisdom teeth that fucked up my molars dealt with until my mid-thirties, over a decade later than I should have, but I could afford the crowns I needed because of their undermining fuckery. I could afford to get the uppers out when I was 25 and finally had some dental insurance again because those were a simple extraction. The lower had to be dug out of my jawbone, so there it sat for another decade. The root mashing mostly didn't hurt acutely, more like orthodontic pain, so I could ignore it. I still have one because it's already done all its damage and it's easier to leave it be. (It stayed completely under the gum.)
I am fortunate in that I have fairly good teeth. Not a lot of cavities, but that's a quirk of genetics more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteMickey Schulz Yeah, I have a small mouth that caused crowding, but good enamel; it could have been a LOT worse, but genetics is just luck.
ReplyDeleteOnce they pulled my wisdom teeth my other teeth spread back and straightened themselves out somewhat. My mouth ached for about two months.
ReplyDeleteMickey Schulz I had a really good surgeon for my last one, and the bone actually filled back in pretty well. Also there was some risk she could sever the trigeminal nerve and cause facial paralysis (it was close to the tooth), so that was nice to miss. Nothing but the best for techie insurance, which I was enjoying at the time.
ReplyDeleteEarlier, on my wussier insurance, I found a dentist from China who had worked with nothing but hand tools for twenty years before moving to the US. Preach about what training can do in remote places with limited tool sets. He did the uppers as simple extractions by feel, because my mouth was too crowded for him to see them and I couldn't afford surgery yet, and he got that. I can't recall who recommended him to me, but I owe them a drink or two.
Yeah, we need to get Ogre's lower wisdom teeth out. They grew in sideways. And while our regular dentist takes payments, i don't have an oral surgeon whose Master's thesis I edited.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they knew that mine were going to be trouble when I was 11....they could see the buds growing sideways in my x-rays.
ReplyDeleteMy lack of wisdom tooth extraction fund went right next to my (mostly*) lack of college fund, and I lost all insurance coverage when I turned 18 because Amurrica.
I survived one particularly bad case of strep at age 18 or 19 because the clinic sent me home with a paper bag full of nearly expired antibiotic samples. I wasn't going to go in (because the prospect of not eating after I paid the doctor was concerning to me) but my paramedic friend pointed out that a) I already couldn't eat because my tonsils had swollen so much I could no longer fit anything solid in and b) by the way, if you ignore strep you can get heart failure, so I was swayed by this impeccable logic.
* The family mind-fuckery about college, and how it might or might not get paid for, is too bizarre to explain in this footnote. I escaped from college ungraduated and incredibly ill, but debt-free, mostly because those were before the days when students were saddled with untenable debt (I actually would have taken that deal at the time) so I will call it a wash. But I had a full tuition merit based scholarship grant and a needs based grant (which basically covered my books) and a small amount from my family and from all of the work I'd ever done up until that point, and it was still not a patch on what would have gotten me through, because tuition isn't food or housing.
Yeah, my lower wisdom teeth just had roots of doom and had to be broken apart to be extracted.
ReplyDeleteThe thing where if you were enrolled in college you could stay on your parents insurance until you were 24, I think, saved my ass. Chronic asthma, and bronchitis at least twice a winter. Nevermind the sinus surgery when I was 19.
In college the student clinic made a point of requesting samples of my inhalers so they could give them to me for free. Which I appreciated so much, since at the time the uninsured price was $120 a month. Which looks like nothing compared to what my Advair costs.
Here's a fun fact: a lot of places it's cheaper to buy three months of your drugs at a time, IF you can afford that, because the copay, while not three times the cost of one month, is more, usually twice. My copay on Advair is $75/month for something I literally need to breathe. If I buy 3 months, it's only $150, but I can't always afford that even now, so monthly it is. Thankfully, the drug company has a subsidy program, so now it's only $25 a month, but yeah...
Oh, one final fun fact: I definitely get treated differently at pharmacies when I go right after work in my nice middle class white lady drag than when I'm wearing sloppy clothes on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI have had pharmacists not even look at my ID for my hydrocodone scrip when I come after work, but if I'm dressed sloppy they go over that shit with a fine toothed comb.
Yeahhh, there's a catch-22 of can't afford to stay in college, especially when too ill to get to classes, but BOOM no more medical care after I withdrew to try to recover before resuming. Fun times! Luckily for me that was only round one of my illness and I had a remission for a while, and could subsequently work. (The difference between Medicare and Medicaid is astonishing and depressing, and the difference between being able to put in real working time and not is quite possibly the difference between life and death for me. Even though pre-umpty-ump hours of work me looks to me to have the same right to life. But those lazy malingering people, amirite? I mean, if I hadn't been lucky enough to get well, really I ought to have had the decency to die. It wasn't like I was ever going to go on and do anything use-Oh wait, I did. Amurrica's premature euthanasia by neglect was thwarted by the kindly badgering of my friend and some doctors, though, not through any actual plan.)
ReplyDeleteI get my doctors to write my Rxes for three months at a time if I can, yeah.
I have a corn allergy so I don't get to have opiates unless I want to play the anaphylaxis lottery. Getting scheduled drugs compounded is so many hoops I just have to hope that if I ever need emergency surgery they'll recognize the anaphylaxis and give me epinephrine. I might be able to get them compounded before scheduled surgery, if I schedule it a good ways in advance. Oh yes, and compounding isn't covered under my insurance even if the non-compounded drugs all have lethal fillers. I do have an excellent pharmacist who finds me corn-free generic manufacturers if it's possible, at least. I add the difference between the cheapest generic and the corn-free one.
Mickey Schulz And yes. Agreeable, presentable, and compliant as fuck. Women's pain and illness is never very real, especially if we're disabled, so treatment is contingent on attitude and presentation. (Though actually I usually can't drive and Sweetie picks them up for me, bless him.) I do get looked at funny if I actually make it in; I'm semi-mythical. :)
ReplyDeleteHa ha!!
ReplyDelete((We are going kind of off topic, but William can rein us in if he wants))
For years I've been telling docs about my period pain. "No, no, that's normal, " is the response I kept getting.
Then I got kidney stones, and the doctor demanded to know why I waited 17 hours to come in. When I told him that's what my periods feel like, and I thought that was it, I thought he was going to pass out.
The way women's pain is treated riles me to no end.
There are class issues in how and if pain is treated, even among women; it's taken more seriously the higher the class. Though there are also very serious gender issues; within a class a woman's pain is vastly underrated compared to the same class of men. Race also plays a huge role.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not just in pain treatment access but in management of the treatment so as to not be humiliatingly paternalistic.
(your still talking about classism, so it's ok)
ReplyDeleteTrue, very true. Intersectionality and all.
ReplyDeleteYeah. So another fun story time: when I went to the ER for both gallstones and later kidney stones, I was not looking my best. I wasn't treated badly, exactly. But once I mentioned that I worked for the Chair of Medicine for the University (went to our hospital), my treatment vastly improved. Kind of ridiculously so. Especially when I referred to the head of the Division that oversaw the ER by her first name.
Suddenly no one doubted that I really was in that much pain
Which reminds me, I need to find a new PCP. I haven't been back to the old once since it turned out what he kept assuring me was just a swollen lymph node was cancer.
ReplyDeleteI also need a new GP. I haven't had one in years. I keep not liking the ones I visit -- they are condescending and not smart.
ReplyDeleteMine's retiring and I am dreading the gauntlet of fat-shaming until I find another I can deal with.
ReplyDeleteMisha B Wow. Yeah, I wouldn't go back either.
ReplyDeleteMickey Schulz Query: I've started, when I go grab some random snack food during the work day, asking anyone I run into if they'd like anything.
ReplyDeleteThis is a simple, "I'm getting a snack. Want anything?" to folks as I walk out the door.
I am concerned this will be taken as "I have money and you don't. I am better than you." Am I worrying over nothing?
Not Mickey but I think you're worrying too much.
ReplyDeleteOh, doctors. So here's a fun fact about doctors and why poor and fat people have health issues. Because of food deserts and such, fat and poor is frequently an intersection. Not only does the doctor cost you money, but when you're also fat a lot of the time your legitimate health concerns will be blown off because you're fat. I have had friends be told that bronchitis, pneumonia, a broken ankle, and any other ailment you can name were, instead, because they were fat.
ReplyDelete"There's nothing wrong with your ankle that losing weight and exercising won't fix." Except, you know, that fracture you ignored. She got a second opinion and finally an X-ray, and gosh, looky there, a fracture.
Another friend was told that her being short of breath and coughing up green crud was because she was fat and didn't move around enough. Said friend didn't own a car and walked everywhere. She went back for a second opinion and the second doctor was like, "Gah! No, you have pneumonia! Here's a prescription for strong ass antibiotics and an inhaler, and a note to tell your boss and professors that you're going to be staying at home for awhile. And I'll be filing a report on that other guy."
My GF has a rote response to fat-shaming: "Since I'm unlikely to lose enough weight by the end of this visit to make you happy, why don't we focus on what I came in here for?" Repeat as necessary.
I've had doctors outright accuse me of lying about how much I exercise, how much I eat, whether I drank soda. I've been accused of being "non-compliant" because I wouldn't diet. I lost my shit at one and offered to bench press her if she really didn't think I was exercising enough to be strong enough to do that. She said, "That's a cute joke." I said, "I'm not joking. I can bench press you."
That same doctor got mad at me for interrupting her "You're going to die of the dethfatz" speech by pointing her to my blood test results, which were all well within acceptable parameters. After she trailed off, staring at the numbers, I said, "So, how's that 'I'm gonna drop dead any second,' thing working for you now?"
Now add to the above fat shaming bullshit, coming to the office in grungy clothes, bad teeth, any of the other markers of being poor.
I can't speak to the experiences of fat POC, but I imagine that just adds another cherry to the top of the shit sundae.
Yeah, what Misha said. I think you're worrying too much.
ReplyDeleteAnd honestly, the broke ones will likely not take you up on that because they'll worry they won't be able to reciprocate.
I don't want them to reciprocate! They do, though, like it when I bring in donuts. Maybe I should do that more often.
ReplyDeleteNote: I do it often when we win a new special election. If I feel super happy about it.
That works.
ReplyDeleteAlso, don't go overboard.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue surrounding medicine and poverty: Doctors and dentists never tell you how much something costs until you get the bill. You walk into McDonald's with 39 cents, you can look at the menu and go, huh, I can't afford anything here except water and ketchup so that's what I'll get. You can't do that at a doctor's office. So if you don't have a clue whether you can afford a doctor's visit, you suck it up and don't go unless you think you're going to die.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 20 I walked around with what I thought was a dislocated shoulder for four days because I was terrified to go to the doctor. I thought it would cost $2000 that I didn't have. When it was clear it wasn't going to clear up, I went in. Diagnosis: broken collarbone, cost: $75. If it had punctured my lung, I probably would have died.
I've always been in favor of universal health care, but that experience pretty much clinched it.
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: I grew up middle class and have lived a pretty privileged life and now own my own home (or will in 28 years or less). I've been poor enough to have to hitchhike to work, which means you have to allow an extra hour to get there because you might not get picked up for an hour. I've often been surrounded by people with a lot more money than me who don't really get it. I've never been homeless, although I've spent a lot of time living with relatives, and I was in a situation where I thought I was going to lose my house and possibly go bankrupt. I do have some very close friends who have been homeless for lengthy periods of time. Or rather, their home was their car or a tent at a public park.
There's an obliviousness that the wealthy and near-wealthy have that is astounding. I once had someone say to me, "You don't have a car? Why don't you get your parents to buy you one?"
The middle class and wealthy often don't understand that there is a vast chasm between spending a week in a tent in the rain because you choose to do so and spending a week in a tent in the rain because you have nowhere else to go. It's the difference between knowing it will end exactly when you want it to and not knowing when it will end or if it will get worse. The first one makes you feel powerful; the second, powerless.
ReplyDeleteI am probably guilty of this myself, but I'm lucky I have people in my life who by their very existence remind me that I'm privileged.