WTF America?! We can’t keep walking by Heather’s Story…
By Mitchell Parsons Photos by Mitchell Parsons
All photos © mitchellparsons.com
November 2nd 2011 ~ I was walking up Broadway today after leaving Zuccotti Park/Occupy Wall Street, wondering if things are going to change, wondering if all this time and energy and struggle is going to have an affect, when I saw the very reason why it HAS too. I was veering through the masses, lost in thought when I walked past Heather and her cute little daughter sitting on the sidewalk, a cardboard sign in front of them, “SINGLE MOM, RECENTLY LOST MY JOB. NEED HELP MAKING RENT”. I got a block past before I turned back … I couldn’t go another step without speaking with this woman and asking her if it would be ok to tell her story. You know, even as I write this I’m thinking about all the similar stories we are saturated with on a daily basis, but then isn’t that the point…? There are too many stories like this to tell and more to come. It’s increasing when we should be at a time in our society where we hardly remember the days when we had hungry, struggling people on our streets. WHY are we still here?!
Me ~ “What lead to you being here?”
Heather ~ “Basically, I was going to school for medical assisting. The government paid for me to go to the school and was supposed to have an internship that provided an externship, but a month before I’m graduating they did away with the externship. In the Health Care Field we’re not allowed to put our hands on anyone unless you have a certain amount of hands-on hours. So, I didn’t have these hands-on hours because I lost the externship. So, who’s going to hire me now? I was working in a doctor’s office, a pretty shoddy doctor’s office in Jersey City and he got in trouble for hiring people who didn’t have their hours, which is understandable and when he went under, so did I.
So, I came over here (Manhattan) for now. I’m in a Rooming House and trying to make my rent. The government is paying for two days of her (her daughter) daycare and won’t give me more because I don’t have at least a year residency in the state of New York and you need a year residency to get food stamps. I can’t go back to Jersey, there’s nothing there for me. I have no house, there’s no jobs. They won’t pay for me to go back to school to get my externship. They said it’s a “one time deal”. It’s a kickback. There’s a kickback for putting me through school, there’s a kickback for hiring me. It’s a revolving door. They just see us as a number, they don’t see us as Human Beings.”
A few weeks ago Heather was told to go to a homeless shelter. She said she tried it as she pointed out the bedbug bites on her hands and arms. She’s trying to look after her daughter while she looks for a job and get money for her rent.
We, as a species have had thousands of years to grow up and get beyond this. We have the know-how, the resources and somewhere deep inside we have the will.
So, why are we STILL here?!
“We can’t feed the poor but we can fund a war?”
I’ve heard people say about the wars and the poor, “It’s been going on since time began” like it’s some way of justifying it. It doesn’t justify it! It’s the point! “Since time began” and it is still going on?!
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Krishnamurti
We can go through all the famous quotes and mutter under our breath how they’re so true, blah blah blah, but it’s not enough anymore. It just isn’t enough. Our governments are filled with Charlatans who, when it’s election time are quick to blab out any rhetoric that they think the masses want to hear and the masses fall for it time and again. Why? A system of government that is filled with ignorant people most likely have never been truly hungry a day in their life, who set up programs and paperwork which doesn’t help the starving it only prolongs the problem.
I was going to use this article for next week, but I know what it’s like to be hungry. I know what it’s like to see my own single mother struggling so hard to feed her kids. I know that people like Heather can’t wait. This is an emergency going on in this country, in our society and WE can’t wait another minute before we all work to turn this around. She told me when she and her daughter were crossing the street someone in a hurry knocked her daughter over and just kept going. Have people become so numbed out and scared, so caught up in the rat race that we can’t look out for each other? Has civilization truly lost its civility?
“If one suffers, we all suffer”
So many questions, but what are the answers? Let’s start finding them, NOW. We can’t leave it up to our governments and the system to find the solutions. They clearly haven’t and they won’t.
“Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries
or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job.
It lies with each of us individually.
Peace, for example, starts within each one of us.
When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.”
–The Dalai Lama
