It’s been a while since a book has affected me the way Matthew Desmond’s Evicted did. In fact, I’d wager that it affected me unlike anything else I have ever read.
I had just finished Al Franken’s Giant of the Senate when I saw Senator Cory Booker’s post on a summer book club. I needed a new book and he was recommending one, win-win.
When I hit play that first drive home, I didn’t know what to expect. The narrator’s soothing voice added an expectation of calmness that I would soon realize would be much needed as Desmond weaved a complicated story of eight families living in poverty in Milwaukee in 2008-2009. The stories seemed distant to me at first, unrelatable and far away. But, as the stories progressed, I found myself deeply moved by these strangers.
Their stories aren’t necessarily unique to today’s cultural landscape in America. They are the stories you hear in passing on the news – families evicted, house fires devastating a family and killing an infant, a promising young nurse falling victim to to the opioid crisis, a young mother who doesn’t know where to take her children after her third eviction in as many months. These stories on the news are easy to ignore and pass off as someone else’s problem.
But these stories were different. The connection deeper as I spent hours listening to their intertwining lives. I cried for them and with them. I wanted to change their reality. I wished America was a better place with true equality and equity.
These stories are the reason arguments about pulling oneself up by their bootstraps is complete bullshit. These people don’t have boots nor do they have access to boots and when they are given boots, they are beaten with them. While they struggle to keep from drowning, society is dumping buckets of water on them rather than extending a helping hand.
This book outlines the very problem with “equality” in America. We have this notion that segregation and discrimination are ancient history. But, both are alive and well and until we can finally see that, we will never move forward. Until we can see the line of demarcation between privilege and poverty and the clear part that race plays in this, we will not prosper as a nation.
The only way our nation and our economy can sustain and succeed is when we all have equal access, equal opportunity and a safe place to call home.
“Star Lord!” my son asked for the 15th time in about seven days. I suppose on one hand I could be stoked that my child is obsessed with a movie I actually enjoy rather than, say, Barney. But there are only so many times one can watch the same movie before wondering when sanity ends and insanity begins. I am guessing it is somewhere around the 100th viewing, which we passed a little over a week into his obsession with Groot and Star Lord.
Like many girls and women, I often struggle to find confidence and comfort in my own skin. There’s always something to hate – the back fat, that annoying under arm chicken wings, uneven eyebrows (long lost cousins, not sisters), a far too wide nose that contouring doesn’t even help, one too many chins, hair that’s too thin or flat – this list goes on and on and it changes daily.
Every single day there are pressures to be more and do more. To try harder to fit into a mold that may or may not fit into who I am or who I want to be. The days I don’t feel confident, those little things bother me more than they should and I tend to give into the frustrations even more. Those days also typically line up with the days I miss my morning workout and thankfully, working in a downtown setting means I can spend my lunch hour taking a brisk walk through the city. And, nor matter how I felt before or during that walk, I always feel better when I get back.
Then Karen Handel opened her mouth and uttered those now infamous words. At least she was honest? At least she nailed the very different between the right and the left on the head. The difference they adamantly deny when they insist that they are the party of the working class (laughable at best). But, there it was plain as day. The GOP does not support a living/livable wage. Why? Because they place the needs of businesses and corporations above the needs of the people that vote them into office. They place money before people and party before country.
Growing up, my mom was my idol. She’s strong, confident and pretty much everything I wanted to be. She sang at the top of her lungs when everyone was listening. She danced like no one was watching when literally everybody was watching – much to my red-cheeked embarrassment. She is unashamed in her love and affections. She always gives and rarely takes (unless we force her to).
Seventeen years ago I voted in my first presidential election, I was nineteen. For as long as I could remember politics were a passion of mine and my opinions and ideals always aligned with the Left. So, when I watched the election of 2000 unfold, my heart was crushed. Then, in 2004, it was crushed again.
My son is going through his 18-24 month sleep regression, which means we’ve been doing a lot of rocking before bed lately. The boy who used to let us know it was bedtime and would climb into bed, lay his head down and close his eyes without a fight now refuses to do anything of the sort.
Thanks to my job, I travel once every month or two. Most of the time, the trips are short, but sometimes I am gone for a few days. Those trips are hard – being away from my son and husband isn’t easy. Plus, I don’t always have time to call or video chat.