Part 1: I was born of a mixed race couple in an inner-city hospital, on the Eastern edge of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. I spent my childhood years bouncing from home to home, and school to school. We spent as much time on food stamps as off. We accepted food from churches and stood in line for Government cheese. My care takers were drug addicts and the mentally ill. I had my first ride in the back of a cop car when I was five or six. That’s when I was taken to my first foster home. I have fond memories of a Shelter for Battered Women my mother and I stayed in for awhile. It was near the beach, and we would go there on weekends. Also, there were lots of other kids to play with. I was around eight when a friend of mine was killed in the street. He was a lot older, I think around thirteen. By then, the older kids were already scoring drugs and getting into trouble. Even us younger kids knew who all the drug dealers were, and could tell if they were holding just by walking by their houses. We ended up out in the desert a lot. In trailer parks built on the edges of junk yards. If my parents were together, we would move to where my dad could find a delicate balance of creative work and cheap rent. Otherwise it was cinderblock walls and blankets that smelled like spoiled formula.
As I got older and more creative, I learned the value of currency in all its forms: Nickel and Dime bags, ‘teenths and eight balls. The going rate for buying and selling food stamps depended largely on how close it was to the first of the month. This was my 3rd Grade Math. My only concept back then of, “Street Credit” would have had something to do with asking someone to “front” you some drugs (bad idea, by the way). Life was up-side-down. Good was bad. Bad was good. We were taught to lie to the Police, our teachers, and ESPECIALLY CPS. Us kids picked our way among the addictions and convictions. Ultimately, it didn’t work out. When all the dust had settled, Pop did some time for another DUI, and Mom was sent away for a nervous breakdown. I didn’t see her again for three years. I had hoped to see her at the divorce hearing, but she didn’t show. I saw her again when I was fourteen, in a half-way house. She made me a card and showed me where they let her sleep.
I guess what I’m trying to get at here is, depravity. I know what it looks like. I spot it from across the room and hope it doesn’t smile back at me, recognizing me for one of its brood. You see, I escaped. I rose above my station. Not by much, mind you. But certainly more than those who never expected me to grow up to be anything other than a drug addict. I’m not claiming “Sob Story of the Year,” lots of folks have had it a lot worse than I ever did. And believe me I know, lots of folks have stuff they just don’t talk about, so let’s just leave it at that. What I’m trying to get at is that I have some idea of what it’s like to get it wrong. I grew up surrounded by generational poverty and depravity, fueled by welfare and failed social programs. I have a healthy mistrust of naïve do-gooders, and a deep disdain for people or institutions that hurt kids.
It took me a while to get here; after all, I wasn’t raised this way. I spent too many years resenting others for being “lucky” or “privileged.” I railed against a corrupt system that would never let the "likes of me" participate. WE were the proletariat, and THEY were the bourgeoisie. And in the case of my upbringing, THEY were everyone who wasn’t US. By my middle teens I started to recognize the pattern of those who blazed the trail before me. The older “cool” kids had already started to burn out or disappear. Daughters of single mothers on welfare became single mothers on welfare. The slow burn of another generation had begun.
More later. 10-21-10
Alaniz
Part 2: My Friend Dave asked what I was on about, and here is what I said:
I attend a predominantly white middle class to upper-middle class church. I show up to Sunday school most every week and talk to some fantastic people, most of which I have come to think of... as friends. Still, mostly people from a very different background than my own. These days I think of myself as a pretty liberal, conservative. I esteem the rights if the individual above the "rights" of the State. Specifically, the rights and freedoms of an individual to pursue happiness in any way that does not impinge upon the rights of others. With this in mind, I'm pretty flexible on most things. There are some things on which I do not bend. Most of these involve people or programs that hurt kids. These days I'm a pretty non-violent person, but there are still some people or ideas that make me do a quick look around the room for things I might trip over if things get ugly. Well, lately our church has started moving toward "social justice." This idea that somehow you can create less need with more handouts. You know me. I'm not above anyone. Heck, when we were younger, Codie and I got on the food stamps for a while. I love that we live in a country that is prosperous enough to support those who occasionally fall into a rough patch. (I'm not sure if that should be the roll of Government, but for now, it is.) What I am against, is a system that encourages people to not work. I have heard people my whole life say, "If I get a job at (minimum wage place) I'll make less money [than I do on welfare]." (And the answer is not raising minimum wage either. Raising the bottom line only pushes everyone else down.) I know, I have seen the system gut the drive for anything better out of entire populations. it doesn't work. Evidently it sounds crazy to some people but, too much "compassion" for people keeps them down. We have a system of welfare in this country that penalizes the industrious. Bounce that off the particular way I see the world, and it is a system that hurts kids. It sucks the spark of life out of them. They are brought up with this belief that there is a wall between them and a prosperous life. The terrible thing is, they're right. It is a wall created BY the welfare system. If they screw up and get a job, they lose the stamps and the WIC. They end up making HALF what they were getting for doing nothing. You've seen it. You know EXACTLY what the hell I'm talking about. SO, fast forward to what is going on at my church. The new preacher gets up and says there are people who need our help. He says that these people have been "marginalized." That particular word strokes me the wrong way. We do not have a "marginalized" population in this country. Not like the "untouchables" in India, or Christians under the Taliban, or gays in Iran today for that matter. There are these people, in MY opinion, who look DOWN on the poor. Who look to the ghetto and think, "if we could just do MORE, these people wouldn't suffer." "We need more hand-outs and social programs." "We need to walk up and down the streets handing out more free stuff so these people can have the same stuff as the rest of us." No, I say! You naive do-gooders just need to get the hell AWAY! The system is broken. Until it is fixed, you cannot make things better by turning it up. So here I am ranting in Sunday school. I tell people, "I came from there, it doesn't work." But I don't know if they understand. I don't know if they've ever seen a pregnant woman smoke crack. Somehow, I think that if they had, they would be just as agitated as I am by this whole thing. Then someone asks me why I am being so heartless and insensitive to the needs of others? Why do I not want to help these people who lack so much? Do I not want to help them because they are black? And I'm struck dumb. I don't know what to say. Maybe these folks don't really have any idea who I am. So I wrote the first part of my Essay on Socialism. I wrote it and re-wrote it. I ended up editing out everything I couldn't generalize. I left out all the stuff about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I cleaned up references to drugs and violence. This is Facebook after all. Who might read this one day. This is the wrong forum for too much honesty. After I read what I had written, finally written, I decided not to press the issue. I'm not sure if I can get people to understand anyway. Meanwhile, I am painted as an ultra-conservative whacko who is positioned at odds to the Liberal compassion of our new church leadership. Wow, how did I get here?
Alaniz
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