We live in a world that is often difficult to navigate. We are shaped by our environment of poverty, discrimination, the rampant competition. We try to meander through this society’s pitfalls and make it to the end of the day with some dignity.
For children in our world, on our planet, it is harder. But they survive too.
For my kids, in 13 weeks when my unemployment benefits run out, when my Federal unemployment extensions are exhausted, they will have a father that the government deems a “discouraged” worker. I may then disappear off the stats, off the lists.
Today’s newspaper put California’s true unemployment rate, including those on forced part-time and those “discouraged” at almost 22% of the workforce. And into this world comes the next generation.
I have on many occasions been inspired by my own children. Yesterday was one of those days. As often happens, their parents were talking about a complex issue that they did not understand. Our oldest, our 6-year old, wanted to know exactly what we were talking about.
We had our first open chat about one of capitalism’s most vile poisons: racism. My daughter’s mother was explaining about a woman who accused black people of stealing from other people. She didn’t even get to explain our position in opposition to that, before our daughter’s whole body just filled with anger, “that’s just not true!” she thundered, “that’s not true.” I believe this was as mad as I’ve ever seen her. I honestly cannot remember seeing her seethe like this. She added as an instant retort, “D’Angelo’s dad is black. He does not steal.” She could have listed a bunch of people, but she rested her case. We then told her how right she was and how wrong the racists are, and how her parents fight racism.
One day kids and parents won’t have to have this discussion, and in many ways, that responsibility of revolution rests on those coming up today.
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