What I have learned and what I have yet to learn in my fifty years of life is often in question as to what truth is and what is not. What are mythical, unsubstantiated beliefs that I had thought were facts which I practice as I travel in this life? This often leads me to confusion and more questions. I know as women our personal life and physical body is often up for debate on the political level. We are governed by laws, social mores, and norms, values and institutional structured behaviors I live by without question. All of these social constraints we live by are based on generation after generation of value laden laws supposedly made to keep us safe. In 50 years I have seen more and laws and, more and more people become criminals eventually bringing us where we are today poverty has become a crime, my reproductive rights belong to the government, to be fought over at the highest courts in the country Although we proudly say we do not make poverty a crime and we tell everyone we are free people, it is a lie. I am not free to chose whether I have a child or not, I only have that right if the court says so or if I am financially capable of traveling miles.If I chose to not have children I can easily become a criminal in many places, due to my gender and my economic level. bringing the ball right back around to poverty is a crime.
I contend that poverty in our country has and always will be a crime. I believe that we need to stop making laws that constrain who is and who is not welcome in our society. We need to stop punishing those who only possess their labor as a resource used to survive. Unless we stop doing what we are doing we will continue to build more and more prisons and jails, hire more and more law enforcement officials and spend less and less on social programs that will help our citizens. I contend that instead of spending our extra resources on electing politicians to vote for our laws, and spend just a little of it helping one person out of poverty , by giving them a home, a job , a way out we will become a country of criminals. I wonder if each one of us stopped on the street and took woman under our wings and helped her just a little if our entire country would be a better, safer and more valuable society. A while back I did start practicing this. I
gave a homeless man all the money I had in my purse, I took a women into my
home that has now been able to secure a home of her own and a job. My husband brought home a friend who had lost
his home in the flood he stayed with us on and off for months. It did not hurt
us we have not had our belongings stolen. Everything we have done has given us
more than the little bit of money that we used to help support someone
else. My dream is that if one person
reads this and decides to put away their prejudice and fear, that this world
just might have a chance. And I have
meet my goal as a feminist and human being.
