“I have a dream that one day, when i call an 800 number i dont need to press 1 for english. that one day i wont have to work a 40 hr week for someone who sits on thier ass, perfectly able to flip burgers, but collects welfare. that one day we will have plenty of american jobs and everything will be American made. that … one day blacks and hispanics will quit playing the victim game and relize they’re treated better than whites. that someday we will support a white president again. that one day our children will be able to pray in school and say the pledge of allegience.that one day Americans will support our troops instead of corrupt Politicians..
just my opinion.. which is why our troops are over there anyway so we can be free..”
I’ll give you a moment to wrap your brain around that.
This was taken from an online argument on facebook. (I’m not publishing the name for a myriad of reasons.) And, like I imagine most of you, parts of my brain simply shorted out from the overload. I could spend my time tearing this paragraph apart. From the audacity to echo Martin L. King Jr.’s words in order to spread of message of racism to the asinine idea that minorities are playing a game at being victims. I could. But I won’t. Instead, I have a question:
How should we respond to this?
While my first instinct to grab whatever blunt object is handy, that really doesn’t change anything. Ultimately, I don’t want people like this to shut up. I’d like to change their mind. I’d like for them to be a little more logical and a whole lot less fearful. I want them to feel compassion. Sure, I could beat them over the head with facts. But that only goes so far. Eventually, they close up and then you’ve gotten exactly nowhere.
I recall an event at Walmart in which a grandmother was terribly upset for some reason. She only spoke Spanish. Nearly in tears, she was frantic and couldn’t communicate why. Another employee make the comment, “Why can’t those people just learn English?” After finding that the woman couldn’t find her grandson, finding the grandson, and getting things squared away, I went back to the employee in question.
I asked her how far she would go to make her children’s lives better. She said that she’d probably do anything. I asked her if she had to choose between raising her children in a place where there was a high crime rate, where they could never get ahead, and where education would be limited or raising them in a place where there was a chance that they might do well, what would she choose? She chose the later. Would she still choose the later even if it meant that she would have to move far away from her family, not know the language, and take a job washing floors? She admitted that she would. I asked her to imagine her day. She might have to work long hours and maybe she could only see her kids for a few hours each day. Would she take an English class or spend time with her kids? She got very quiet after that.
Skip ahead a few months. I overheard the same employee gently dressing down another associate. She was have the same conversation that I had that day. But this time, she was the one appealing to the associate’s imagination and compassion. Yeah, I cried at work that day. But for the very best of reasons.
How do I respond? I ask questions.
Too often people try to railroad others into changing their minds with facts and logic. The problem is that those two only work if the other person has a base made of them (so to speak). And if they do, that’s fantastic. But if they don’t, in the end, both parties are angry and nothing in accomplished.
I like my sister’s method. She merely postulates this: How does insert behavior here make you a better person?
So here’s my question for the readers of the vast interweb: How would you respond?
I can’t seem to wrap my head around why people are against fixing our painfully (apologies for the pun) broken health care system. I recently had the opportunity to visit with an ex-coworker of mine, and I really appreciated her views.
Being a single mother in a low income bracket, her son had access to HealthWave, which is the Kansan version of Medicaid for children. Unfortunately, once she was making $7.50 an hour for 32 hours a week, she received the news the her son was no longer eligible for the program (read carefully on the website. Coverage is never guaranteed. It only states that you may be eligible) . Granted, surviving on $7.50 an hour isn’t too bad, provided that you have a strong social support system. This is something that far too many people overlook. Think about every time your family (and/or friends) pushed you to work harder or set your own standards higher. Think about the expectations you grew up with.
I digress. In the conversation with my friend, she pointed that now health care for herself and her son is now hundreds of dollars a month. In the few years that they’ve had health insurance, they have visited the doctor or dentist a whooping total of five times. After acknowledging that treatment would have been cheaper had they paid out-of-pocket, she said that she wouldn’t mind paying so much (she could afford it now) if only she knew that someone was getting the benefits, instead of knowing that someone was getting richer.
I couldn’t agree more.
There’s a lot in the media about how the United States has the greatest health care system in the world. I am amused at how many people that I know support that statement have never experienced health care outside the US. And in conversations with them, I’ve been having a good time asking them to do a little research of their own. For example, try looking up the following by country:
Infant Mortality Rate
Maternal Mortality Rate
Preventable Deaths
These are just a few examples. Find where the US is on the list. Look at countries that are doing better than us. Then look at how many countries have socialized (or heavily regulated) health systems.
When roughly 20% of each dollar (this is the lowest number I’ve seen. The highest is 31%) is spent toward overhead costs, there is something wrong. At very LEAST, we need to digitize records and standardize billing systems.
This post meanders around a bit (I’ve been studying math for the past three hours and my eyes are crossing), but my points are these. 1) Something needs to be done about the current system. 2) We are not the best in the world, but I have hope that we can improve. 3) It’d be really nice if Americans could work together to create a better system, but I don’t have much hope for that.
(Side note: I am amazed by the number of people who are opposed to health care reform and can somehow manage claim they are religious. Deut. 15:7. “If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.” Except, of course, unless you think he’s lazy. Or if you don’t like him. Or if he doesn’t share your particular belief system. I know folks that make a HUGE deal out of homosexuality (which the Bible mentions about six time) and yet complain about their tax money going to welfare (verses about taking care of the poor are second in number only to verses about having no gods before God). What happen to the whole idea of not judging?)
