In the last 10 day or so, this blog post was born. You may wish to skip this post as it gets a bit grim.
Recently, in a meeting, I felt like I was in a men’s locker room with the good old boy network. A comment was made in jest, and I left the meeting in tears. In no uncertain terms, that comment informed me of the value that this person has in me as a human.
I spent the night in tears. Memories flooding back of the decades I fought for the right to recover in a “Good old boys” situation. I used to say to myself, “Just wait until they move, get drunk, or die. It will get better.” Eventually, with covid, I realized the truth. The good old boys really don’t give a flying fig, and I moved on with my life.
I’d foolishly believed that I couldn’t change the meeting, or the group except by being there, and working the program from the book. Changing it by carrying the message to meetings directly from the literature. I couldn’t continue. I was done.
Another coversation I had with someone, about rights really brought home the situation. When I’m in the public, I’m discredited because I’m in the chair. I’m discredited because I’m fat. I’m discredited because I’m female, or old.
I’m not the only one though. Let’s take a look at a baby born with cerebral palsy, or a severe illness. Healthy babies are treated better or quicker. Beautiful babies, in the caregiver’s eyes are given more affection and attention. I’ve watched in the clinic, in the waiting room. The sickly child, there for an appointment is treated as a burden. The kid with a scraped up arm is given more care and affection.
The mentally ill are given the least amount of care, forced back into society untreated and unmaintained. Why? https://www.mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america
I’m a true crime junkie, a murderino if you will. When the care of a human on death row is much more expensive and given than a woman in a coma. When the government spends millions on the defense of a serial killer and nursing homes are shut down for staffing issues and lack of funding leaving the elderly in dire straights, that screams of WTF.
I have seen the news articles of nursing homes shutting down for that specific reason. https://www.ktvq.com/mtn-investigates/nursing-homes-in-crisis-amid-staff-shortage-funding-deficit
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/costs/summary-of-states-death-penalty An excellent resource backing my arguement.
Why is it that the desperately poor get less schooling than the blatently rich? Why is it that the murder of a person of privelege is investigated more fully than the murder of a prostitute? Why are certain groups considered of more value than others?
How much value is one human life? What is the cost of a human’s soul?
Why do foster care kids get thrown into more desperate situations than their parents had? Linked article I’m just curious?
Why does one human have more value than another? I don’t know. What I do know, is the there are no easy answers. I do know that even to get the links for this blog post, I had to beat google into submission.
So today, I’m asking you to please, consider the value of the homeless woman begging for a little money. The old man who sits in the nursing home alone. Consider the human, who was disfigured in a fire. Consider them, because they are us. We are all equals, my friends. From the baby with cerebral palsy, to the serial killer on death row, to the dead prostitute their victim. We are all of value. Please treat others as equals today.
-L
AnonymousKnitter 