I took a walk the other day. Usually, when I take a walk, I let my mind relax and just enjoy nature. Instead, I found myself thinking harder than I normally do.
When Humanity House was in the thinking about it stage, we wanted to take a holistic approach to addressing poverty. I knew that just helping someone with food or someone else with utilities, putting gas in someones car, or finding a coat for someone, wasnt going to solve anything.
Poverty is also about being lonely. Not only is poverty lonely, but it can make a person feel invisible. People who are poor often feel powerless. Why wouldnt they? America has always been a country that grew from the wilderness and became the most prosperous country in the world. Great pride is taken in that fact. What is forgotten by most, and especially by people who are poor, is that this country was built on the backs of the enslaved and the poor. Even today, those who are skittering on the edge of the abyss that is poverty are keeping this nation running.
Industrialists did not make the country. The people who worked and slaved for poor wages, who cared enough for their families to work ungodly hours in horrible conditions those are the people who made industry for America. Every famous business person that you can think of since the beginning of our country has made their money on the backs of the poor.
Yet these are the people who are looked down upon.
People of color, immigrants, and the poor built our great nation. To say otherwise is ignorant. If you dont believe me, imagine your world without all of the people who do the grunt work that keep the cogwheels of our country running. Every worker who clocks in and out of a factory. Every waiter and waitress, cook and bartender. Every police officer, fireman, every nurse and hospital janitor. Insurance adjusters, grocery clerks and stockers, secretaries, cab and bus drivers, bank tellers, store clerks, teachers, harvesters, truck drivers those are the people who are making this country run.
One day soon, I hope they will all remember this.
Hopefully, a revolution will happen when the workers with nothing left to lose demand the respect they deserve.
Respect for the worker, respect for the family, respect for our children and their lives all of this is falling short at the moment.
We are holding the power to change the world in our hands. The first step is to vote. Vote like your life and the life that your children will have depends upon it because it does. Then act. Dont wait for a revolution to begin, be a leader.
Humanity House, in collaboration with the League of Women Voters and Kansas Appleseed, is hosting a Voters Registration Training class from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 27 at our office located at 110 East St. Please join us and learn how you can empower others to change their world.
Kindness matters.
