Americans Feel Exploited and Betrayed, Because We Have Been
By: Jessica Wildfire
Tags: Equality, Politics, Government, Society, Economics

Americans Feel Exploited and Betrayed, Because We Have Been

At least we know now.

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

A chocolate bar.

That’s what I got for Christmas a few years ago. It’s what my boss thought 50 hours of extra work was worth. Nothing would’ve been better.

This year, he declined a pay bump on my behalf, telling the big boss, “They don’t do it for the money.” Although he’s authorized to give all of his teachers a raise, he thinks it would be “fiscally irresponsible.” My boss makes twice as much money as the rest of us do, even though he teaches half as many courses and doesn’t publish at all.

He got where he was by lying and taking credit for other people’s work, something I refuse to do, even though it often feels like that’s the only way to get ahead in any workplace now.

So, I’m not going to argue over my raise.

I’m making up the difference with my side hustles. Like Baby Boomers so often tell me, I’m “getting out there and doing something to help myself,” like I’ve been doing since I was 16.

Maybe you can relate.

We’re worth more than six hundred dollars.

The stimulus package that Congress finally passed is just like the chocolate bar I got a few years ago.

It’s an insult disguised as charity.

Of course, it might never get signed into law now. Our president is using it to grandstand to his base at the moment. So in a way, what we’re hearing is that we’re not even worth the six hundred.

Six hundred bucks doesn’t begin to compensate us for the hardships we’ve dealt with this year. It doesn’t cover anyone’s rent or mortgage. Some of us paid ten or twenty times that much in taxes from extra jobs. The government is basically telling us we don’t deserve our own money back, even though they’ve done squat to help us during a deadly pandemic. Celebrity chefs are currently doing more than our politicians.

You deserve better.

We’ve been running the country.

There’s a certain type of person who jumps on anyone for speaking their mind. They say we’re the problem, because we’re so negative. They tell us to focus on the good things.

“Be a part of the solution,” they say.

Some of us have been the solution for most of our adult lives. We’ve been the teachers and the nurses. We’ve been the parents and the caretakers. We’ve been running the country, while everyone else kicks back and spreads the gospel of positive thinking.

Some of us pay ten times more in taxes than the dead weights who tell us we contribute nothing to society. On top of that, we’ve donated more to charities and nonprofits than our own president pays the IRS. All this, and we still devote nights and weekends to helping others, whether it’s volunteering or just being a damn good teacher.

Myself, I’ve spent hundreds of hours writing free textbooks for my students so they can spend that money on food. I’ve paid for their rent on occasion, and I’ve given them bus money.

I wonder, who’s the real freeloaders?

It’s not us.

We don’t owe anyone a positive attitude.

Imagine the arrogance and selfishness it takes someone to berate another human being right now for feeling.

It happens all the time.

There’s a special group who makes it their mission to police people’s emotions, even in the middle of a pandemic that’s compounded by jaw-dropping levels of ignorance and cruelty.

They aren’t paying attention to the news. If they popped into the real world for a bit, they would see that their sunny optimism is part of the problem. Their gratitude isn’t putting food on anyone’s tables. Their moral support isn’t helping anyone anymore.

They’re vampires.

When they tell you to “cheer up,” they mean they want you to be quiet and get back to serving them with a smile. They don’t want to think about what’s going on behind those cheerful faces.

We’re reserving our positivity for ourselves.

Some describe people like me as negative.

Allow me to respond…

There’s at least two types of positivity. There’s the private, internal voice we use to get through each day. We manage our thoughts and emotions in order to show kindness and empathy toward everyone we’re in charge of caring for. That might include someone’s family and their patients, or their students, or a handful of friends. Right now, that takes a lot of energy.

Then there’s the second kind of positivity.

That one is a form of labor.

It’s the smile we give to strangers, and the saccharine voice we use with problem people. It’s the restraint we show when dealing with anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, and it’s the patience we’ve used to endure month after month staggering incompetence from our leaders. That’s the kind of positivity we don’t have anymore. We have no more tolerance for the sheer stupidity we see in this country every day.

We’re fresh out.

We’re suspending hope for now.

As I’ve written elsewhere, hope is dangerous. Hope is not what gets you through the darkest times.

Hope often makes everything worse.

Right now, a lot of us are operating on a kind of defensive pessimism. There’s just been too much bad news. Hope and wishful thinking aren’t going to rebuild America from its ruins, not this time.

Some plain speaking, that’s in order.

Hope and wishful thinking are exactly what got us into this mess. Consider that our own leaders are on record talking about how bad everything is, and admitting they lie to our faces because they think we’re expendable. They’ve literally said they want us all to get sick and face death, simply because they’re tired of having to do their jobs.

That’s the America we live in right now.

Anyone who could talk about hope is either out of their mind, or clearly just trying to gaslight us.

Greed and toxicity are trickling down.

This year, our support networks have been stretched past the breaking point. Since losing my daycare (permanently), I can’t be there for my students like I was. I’m forced to look out for myself.

I’m having to let other people deal with their problems, even when they’re not always fully equipped to do so. People are coming to me in tears, and I’m having to give them half the time and attention I could.

This is what pisses me off.

The greed and narcissism among our leaders is raining down on us. Because they won’t act, the rest of us are forced to pull back and withdraw into our own lives. We can’t be as compassionate.

Part of me even thinks this is what they want. It’s what they’ve always wanted, to make us as terrible as them. Sometimes it feels like they’re winning. We can feel the selfishness growing inside us.

It’s insidious.

Self-reliance is a form of compassion.

These days, taking care of yourself has become its own form of compassion. You don’t want to become another liability. You don’t want to become another mouth to feed, or another patient waiting for an ICU.

Relying on the kindness of others right now, that’s becoming its own form of privilege and entitlement.

There’s a lot of Americans out there right now who think they’re taking care of themselves, but they’re not. They’re not listening to experts. They aren’t following simple instructions. They won’t sacrifice a holiday with their families for everyone’s greater good.

Once again I have to wonder who the real freeloaders are.

By the way, want a chocolate bar?

It’s the cheap kind.

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