admin
22 December 2023
In my seemingly endless struggle to get by, I found myself wandering the overcrowded aisles of a Giant Eagle that one of my white friends so ignorantly deemed “ghetto”. For him, “ghetto” means “there’s a lot of fuckin’ black people here.” It’s that subtle sort of racism that keeps America looking as if it actually is a melting pot. Which it is not.
But that’s neither here nor there. This Giant Eagle isn’t “ghetto”. It’s just low-income. Yes, there are a lot of black people here on any given day. But there are a lot of white people here, too. Poor people are poor people. Poverty does not discriminate.
Poverty does, however, make me laugh. Somehow, it manages to compel the people it infects to crowd the aisles of retail environments, and shop like their wallets have the cash to back it up. Somehow, it compels me-- fully infected-- to stand in line, to make sure I purchase this shit that, frankly, maybe I don’t exactly need, when you get right down to it.
But I stand, and wait. I stand behind a large black woman, and a large white woman. Poverty-- uniting the people since the days of the Fertile Crescent.
I stand behind these women, arms loaded with generic toiletries and housewares, and watch the cashier (as poor as the rest of us) look on with raised eyebrows at the woman in front of her: a skinny woman wearing a teal t-shirt, no bra, and some tattered blue jeans. Her hair is combed, but still looks unkempt. It is dirty blonde, leaning heavily on the “dirty”. Her eyes are tired. Her teeth need straightened. She is the picture of economic hardship. (I am the picture of economic hardship in denial.) And she is digging for cash.
Her purse becomes this dark, bottomless pit of stray one dollar bills, tucked away behind fast food napkins, tampons, and packs of cigarettes. The cashier (still poor) watches this poor woman in teal dip her hand into this wishing well, where she wishes for well under ten dollars. The cashier raises her eyebrows higher, as if burdened by this woman’s unpreparedness.
In my own head, for a split second, I tell myself I’d like to walk up to this woman, take her purse from her, grab her, and shake the living shit out of her. I want to tell her to stop wasting our fucking time with her unpreparedness-- that if she wishes to be an avid consumer like the rest of us, she needs to make sure she actually has the money she’s spending, or pay with a goddamned credit card. I think all these angry, violent thoughts in the span of a second. And then my anger turns to sadness.
I realize that this woman is me, the women between us, and all the women here. She is everyone. We’re all paying money we don’t have for what we’ve loaded our carts (and arms) with. We’re all searching our purses (or pockets, or wallets) for that fistful of pennies we need to pay the full amount. It’s not our faults. And that’s what makes it so sad.
Then the sadness becomes anger again. It isn’t our faults. We’re not the reason the cost of living is so ridiculous. It’s those known as the "haves". They have way too much. Money, yes. But more importantly, power. And that power gets them more money. More money that comes from us, standing here in line, needing things, willing to pay even more than normal for them.
It’s a vicious cycle,.. the way of the world: capitalism. We buy what they’re selling because we need it. Because we need it, they charge more. Because they charge more, we pay more, so we can buy what they’re selling. Because we need it. Our need is their greed.
And my anger now becomes frustration. I can’t step out of line. I’m trapped in it. I need these things. And I can’t get angry at the woman struggling at the register to pay for this thing she needs. I can only be sad that she’s in this situation. That she is us. That we’re in it with her.
My friend-- who so ignorantly deemed this place “ghetto”-- comes up next to me in line and watches the woman quietly dig. He sees the cashier staring down at her, scornfully. He leans in to me and whispers, “How sad! She must be so embarrassed!”
“No,” I say, matter-of-factly. “She’s used to this by now. She lives here. This is her world.”
But that’s neither here nor there. This Giant Eagle isn’t “ghetto”. It’s just low-income. Yes, there are a lot of black people here on any given day. But there are a lot of white people here, too. Poor people are poor people. Poverty does not discriminate.
Poverty does, however, make me laugh. Somehow, it manages to compel the people it infects to crowd the aisles of retail environments, and shop like their wallets have the cash to back it up. Somehow, it compels me-- fully infected-- to stand in line, to make sure I purchase this shit that, frankly, maybe I don’t exactly need, when you get right down to it.
But I stand, and wait. I stand behind a large black woman, and a large white woman. Poverty-- uniting the people since the days of the Fertile Crescent.
I stand behind these women, arms loaded with generic toiletries and housewares, and watch the cashier (as poor as the rest of us) look on with raised eyebrows at the woman in front of her: a skinny woman wearing a teal t-shirt, no bra, and some tattered blue jeans. Her hair is combed, but still looks unkempt. It is dirty blonde, leaning heavily on the “dirty”. Her eyes are tired. Her teeth need straightened. She is the picture of economic hardship. (I am the picture of economic hardship in denial.) And she is digging for cash.
Her purse becomes this dark, bottomless pit of stray one dollar bills, tucked away behind fast food napkins, tampons, and packs of cigarettes. The cashier (still poor) watches this poor woman in teal dip her hand into this wishing well, where she wishes for well under ten dollars. The cashier raises her eyebrows higher, as if burdened by this woman’s unpreparedness.
In my own head, for a split second, I tell myself I’d like to walk up to this woman, take her purse from her, grab her, and shake the living shit out of her. I want to tell her to stop wasting our fucking time with her unpreparedness-- that if she wishes to be an avid consumer like the rest of us, she needs to make sure she actually has the money she’s spending, or pay with a goddamned credit card. I think all these angry, violent thoughts in the span of a second. And then my anger turns to sadness.
I realize that this woman is me, the women between us, and all the women here. She is everyone. We’re all paying money we don’t have for what we’ve loaded our carts (and arms) with. We’re all searching our purses (or pockets, or wallets) for that fistful of pennies we need to pay the full amount. It’s not our faults. And that’s what makes it so sad.
Then the sadness becomes anger again. It isn’t our faults. We’re not the reason the cost of living is so ridiculous. It’s those known as the "haves". They have way too much. Money, yes. But more importantly, power. And that power gets them more money. More money that comes from us, standing here in line, needing things, willing to pay even more than normal for them.
It’s a vicious cycle,.. the way of the world: capitalism. We buy what they’re selling because we need it. Because we need it, they charge more. Because they charge more, we pay more, so we can buy what they’re selling. Because we need it. Our need is their greed.
And my anger now becomes frustration. I can’t step out of line. I’m trapped in it. I need these things. And I can’t get angry at the woman struggling at the register to pay for this thing she needs. I can only be sad that she’s in this situation. That she is us. That we’re in it with her.
My friend-- who so ignorantly deemed this place “ghetto”-- comes up next to me in line and watches the woman quietly dig. He sees the cashier staring down at her, scornfully. He leans in to me and whispers, “How sad! She must be so embarrassed!”
“No,” I say, matter-of-factly. “She’s used to this by now. She lives here. This is her world.”
artid
1688
Old Image
6_2_sarah.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 02 (oct 2003)
section
pen_think