The Fire This Time

Someday I will learn never to join a Facebook discussion in which anything important is being tossed around. But yesterday was not that day.

When I saw this conversation (abbreviated for sanity’s sake), I felt as though another point of view might not go amiss. 

A friend of my friend had remarked, “We live in an entitlement society where even the poorest amongst us feel it is a necessity to have a smart phone, HDTV, premium footware or designer coffee.” To this my friend had responded, “This country has lost any notion of moral authority a long time ago. I'm talking about a country where a person who has a high school diploma, could actually work in dignity and have a wage that could support a family, a home and some semblance of mobility. If we can just work for that small goal, things will change for the better. It will be gradual, but all good things take time.”

There were two red flags here, the first being a true canard, as well as a cliché, and the second being “all good things take time.”

Since I’ve known the man who initiated the discussion for years, it didn’t feel intrusive for me to express my opinion. 

I responded when no doubt I should have just moved on. 

“I think many of us feel we don't have time. It's not the smartphones, HDTV, and dinners out that we feel the lack of. It's affordable rent, grocery prices that don't soar into the stratosphere, and serviceable public transit that is escaping the grasp of many of us and getting more unobtainable every year. We are the working poor, doing our damndest to keep a toehold on a life that isn't on the streets, in one of the richest countries in the world. Behold--the American Dream curdling and think of Langston Hughes' question, "What happens to a dream deferred?" America is beginning to find out—“

The friend of the friend then had this to say, “The collective eyes are on the wrong targets with so much easy credit and flashy, shiny stuff to be had and the "requirement" of 24/7 electronic information/communications. EVERYTHING now has an access fee, a use tax, a convenience fee and a late penalty attached to it... and unless you have a web browser and a credit card to process the transaction with, then your life is made to be a frustrating hell in the extreme. No wonder things like getting lights to stay on and water to drink has become something that only the "haves" can afford.”

“Oh I see--it's not the rise in the cost of living that's the problem for many of us. It's "the flashy, shiny stuff to be had" that keeps poor people from paying our rent and getting lights to stay on. Thanks for making it all so clear to me.”

And here is the response to that. “I don't know you nor what your life circumstances are but clearly you are of means enough to comment on Facebook and sensitive enough to have an opinion on this issue, which is good.”

The friend of a friend went on to say that although he had been out of work for years and had been forced at times to live with friends, he was not “poor.” I hope someday someone explains to him that “poor” is an economic condition, not an epithet. And that Facebook is not a means-based activity, and that an opinion that is not of his mindset is not expressed to gain his approval--or condescension. 

If this man’s mindset is indicative of the majority in this country, then I say burn it to the ground and start over. Hurry up please, it’s time.