Recently in Class Category

This article in the St. Petersburg Times is headlined "Too much water nearly kills infant." I had to stop and think about why this felt wrong to me - what am I missing? Then I realized that this headline, IMHO, places the blame squarely on the person giving the water. The Mom. The place that these articles love to place blame.

But when you continue to read the article, it's clear that the economy was a huge factor. The family didn't have enough money for formula. Unbelievably, the WIC office didn't have enough money for formula either! And there was perhaps no one to help this mother evaluate her options.

This mother made a stupid mistake, but without the outside pressures her baby wouldn't likely have been in this position. And in addition, kudos to her for knowing and using Infant CPR!

I just heard on CNN that Louisiana's Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) is looking into a plan to pay poor women to have their tubes tied. This is based on his concern that poor people reproduce at a higher rate than more economically privileged people do, who pay more in taxes. Folks, this is his guess--he has no data to this effect. Mark Waller from The Times-Picayune reports on nola.com that "He said he is gathering statistics now."

Hmmm...so instead of looking at the actual range of factors that affect poverty and aiming to solve those, he's going to racistly assume that it's because they're voluntarily having "too many" children "they can't afford," and if they can't afford them, we should encourage, not free contraception and education, but sterilization, so he's then going to try to find data to support this?

After a heated discussion with my mom last night, I got to thinking about all those little things that really are discriminatory but we never think about as being so. Last night came across this one...

I have been thinking a lot about sustainability lately. Specifically how accessible a diet of sustainable food is how much of a role class and privilege play. Speaking with my cousin, Mia, a few weeks ago got me thinking about the image associated with buying and eating local foods. Even Stuff White People Like jokes that farmer's markets are a place for white people to placate "their undying need to support local economies, and the idea of buying direct from the farmer helps them assuage the fears instilled in them from reading Fast Food Nation (and yes, every white person has read this book)." Mia talked about an upper class, pretentious image that is often associated with this lifestyle and the inaccessibility many feel because of this. I agree. Image is definitely one concern, others include actual cost, accessibility, and time.

What is causing healthy food access problems? (via)

Poverty, or the lack of resources with which to acquire food, is the primary source of food insecurity in the United States. However, extensive documentation shows that the lack of access to food in low-income urban neighborhoods -- the simple inability to buy it there -- is an important additional factor. Compared to people living in higher-income areas, residents of low-income urban neighborhoods have very limited access to high quality food, enjoy fewer options in the variety of goods that are available to them, and pay higher prices for their groceries when they are available.

There have been efforts made to increase accessibility of healthy foods to low-income families including farms that accept food stamps. This is a great start but the vouchers go a lot further at the grocery store than at the local farmer's market. In May, Thomas wrote,"All modern famines are failures of entitlement, not of food production. There's enough food, but some people due to poverty or other barriers cannot get it." This certainly makes food a feminist issue.

I have been thinking a lot about sustainability lately. Specifically how accessible a diet of sustainable food is and how much of a role class and privilege play. Speaking with my cousin, Mia, a few weeks ago got me thinking about the image associated with buying and eating local foods. Even Stuff White People Like jokes that farmer's markets are a place for white people to placate "their undying need to support local economies, and the idea of buying direct from the farmer helps them assuage the fears instilled in them from reading Fast Food Nation (and yes, every white person has read this book)." Mia talked about an upper class, pretentious image that is often associated with this lifestyle and the inaccessibility many feel because of this. I agree. Image is definitely one concern, others include actual cost, accessibility, and time.

You know, I’m really starting to get sick of all the “news” stories about rising gas prices and how that’s affecting family summer vacations. Several times a week I hear, read, or see some sort of report about how people are “coping” with having to cancel vacations and instead are creating their travel experience at home (i.e. having a luau in your backyard because you can’t afford to go to Hawaii). There’s even a cute name for them: Stay-cations.

This is by and large the hot gas-related story of the summer. The gist of the story? Woe is me, gas is so expensive that we can’t afford to take our family vacation, we’re sooo stressed out over it, we’re handling this stressful and tragic situation the best we can by having a pretend glamorous vacation at home.

Ahem, privilege, anyone? Honestly, I really don’t feel all that bad for the families who are so economically privileged that they can actually afford to take off of work (or are privileged enough to have paid vacation time) and can go on a family vacation. Why should I?

I’d say I was solid lower-middle to middle class growing up. We went on a vacation every year: a week at my grandparents’ condo in the Southern Tier of New York, less than 3 hours from home. Why? Because it was free. A few summers we didn’t go; those years we visited my aunts, uncles, and cousins in New England. Besides the travel costs of my parents’ station wagon? Also, for the most part, free.

We never went on what you might call a family vacation. And up until now, I didn’t realize that going on some wonderful elaborate trip was some sort of innate American right such that we ought to spend valuable news time lamenting that middle class families this year can’t afford to drive halfway across the country and stay in a resort for a week. Heaven forbid for a summer you actually spend that week doing activities–gasp!–in your own general region. Or that you might now have to vacation–shock!–every other summer. Or, that you–horror!–spend time socializing with friends and neighbors. In an age where we hardly know our neighbors, and where most people are unfamiliar with the gems and resources in their own town, is it really all that huge a loss that the privileged Americans have a Staycation?

Why are middle and upper-middle class families and their precious Disney vacations the face of the rising cost of gasoline and not the working class families who lived month to month as it was before the exponential price increases…who maybe have to skimp on food or medical services, and for whom a Myrtle Beach trip isn’t even on their radar? Instead of moping about being stuck at home, maybe some of these families should spend part of their summer volunteering for charities who help those who will only ever hear about DisneyWorld in the stories told by other more fortunate kids.

As I sit here finishing up the final edits of my Master’s thesis, I had this thought:

The Right tends to argue that our social welfare system provides incentive for single women (a.k.a. “welfare mothers”) to pop out children left and right.  This constitutes an abuse of the system.

I’m not saying that’s at all true (and actually the stats on this “phenomenon” are rather skewed: the number of kids women on welfare have is about the same as the general population), but take their argument and consider this…

Yet there are a slew of tax breaks for families with children.  Does this not also constitute an incentive to have kids in order to receive unearned money (one could call it welfare, sure!) for those kids?  Yet I don’t hear anyone on the right complaining about those..in fact, they usually want to raise them!  Yet why should “we” subsidize “their” children?!

Curious, huh?

I guess so-called “incentives” are OK for the “right” kinds of families…