“We want the same thing.”  My father spoke these self-revalatory words in the mid-1970’s when his forays into the world as a CPA brought the dawning awareness that Black Americans’ desires for a supportive job and viable family life were no different than our own.  This wasn’t born of some study of civil rights theory or even Jewish values as much as just a plain as day admission that all human beings crave and deserve a decent life.
    Thirty years hence, my Dad has now passed.  His personal growth expanded to having a variety of relationships with some African Americans he came to call his friends.  And yet, in many respects, their quest for a decent life has remained elusive.
    Now we have the “OCCUPY” movement calling for fairness based on a redistribution of wealth.  it also suggest that we—and the powers that be—bring some ‘rachmaness’ (compassion) into both corporate and personal dealings.  The laws are on the books.  The wants are duly articulated.  And yet, disparities in lifestyle are astounding and more than depressing.  We are quick to chastise those who use drugs, get caught up in gangs or who otherwise make ‘bad choices.’  But what about persons who make valiant efforts to do right and still get trapped in a vortex which somehow seems to be karmic of much of Black existence in urban America.
    Last week I went on a morning walk, having the freedom to plan my schedule to see clients later in the day.  As it was, even though in the neighborhood, i strangely got lost; i could not get out of the fields and past the fences I was now embedded in.  There were a few moments of panic as well as, truthfully, some exhilaration for riding the crest of this adventure.  I figured it out, an hour and a half later, then arrived at the lab to have my blood samples drawn.  I was going to chit-chat with the lab tech to tell her of my semi-stressful episode. But, then, after a query of mine about an unusual necklace she was wearing, she launched into telling me about her life.
    It was a life, that if most of us had just one of these factors operating, we would be consumed with stress, fraught with anxiety and obsessed with worry.  This life included a violent attack on her son, who had been working as a health care provider ironically to relieve the stress of others.  He survived but now has unending physical repercussions as well as grueling legal matters to pursue.  This man’s child’s mother already died at a young age due to a disease mostly endemic to the Black community, and thus, he was now caring for the child.
    This lab tech/mother had this in front of her mind as she came to work everyday, standing on her feet and very overweight, while taking blood to promote the health of others.  What were her chronic conditions (obesity,obviously, HBP, probably) that she battled with, that might shorten her ability to go forth every day and earn a wage?  She also wore a constant smile: “You never know what someone’s going through. So I smile at them.”
    I remember when I worked for Hopkins’ Hospital in the 1990’s.  We were told that mortality and morbidity rates were all higher for the Black community, sometimes not even lessened by increases in income or education.  it was thought that ‘being Black’ in this society brings its’ own stresses or that possibly the accumulated history of oppression and deprivation still enacts its’ toll.  So I saw a glaring example of this in that lab, right here in Pikesville, right near where I had the luxury of taking my early morning walk, where I was going to dare to complain to this woman about my mini-stress episode.  Fortunately, I had enough wit not to open my mouth.
    These are the issues in healthcare that yearningly begged to be resolved.  This quest for decency is what my father noted 35 years ago.  This mandate for fairness of policy and compassionate action is why people need to occupy…still.

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Things are loads better now after 30 years. Time heals all wounds, right?

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I liked the way you contrasted your personal experience with stress triggered by the adventure of getting lost in nature in your own neighborhood in contrast to the traumatic stress that your health care provider subtly revealed which was rooted in poverty, violence and poor health that you now recognize as legacies of racism. Writing for a Jewish audience, the legacies of racism are probably more akin to the historical trauma of the Holocaust than to income differentials in our market economy. If the Occupy Movement can effectively challenge the legitimacy of power relationships which underlie the inequalities that continue to divide us and stunt our individual and collective potential, we can reorganize our society to promote the civil and human rights that all people deserve.  But this transition will be staunchly resisted by those who continue to benefit at the expense of others and believe that they “deserve” a longer and easier life because of the personal choices that they have made. It remains to be seen if the fiscal crisis which has trapped the 99% of the population can help more of us see that
individuals cannot readily escape the forces of capitalism which operate through electoral auctions and a global marketplace that is indifferent to human rights with the protection of police and the military and a corporate-dominated media, so that we can collectively organize and nonviolently change the rules of the game to eliminate the inequalities which as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett show in “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger” are actually responsible for most of the pathologies and pain in our highly unequal society. Thanks for sharing your insights into this remarkable opportunity to restructure our society.

Please email me Joyce Wolpert’s blogs.  Thank you.