This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is obviously a special one- S’s first. And I have been thinking a lot about one of my responsibilities of a parent; how to raise S with an understanding of the world that includes compassion, passion and kindness. How will we explain all the “isms” and the inequities? How will we raise her to honor all the differences in the world? But right now she’s too young and there are other parental responsibilities in the forefront; S trusts her Dad and me to take care of her in more basic ways- food, shelter, love, and touch. She looks up at us with those big eyes that seem to say “I know you’ll take care of me” and my first thought is I want to give her the best. And that gives me pause, the idea of “best.” Let me explain.

I’m in a book club and this month the chosen book was Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It was the perfect book for me to read right now, and gave me pause and offered a different perspective. The book tells the story of a real-life doctor named Paul Farmer, and his organization called Partners in Health (PIH), which seeks to bring all forms of medical services to places of extreme poverty or need, like Haiti, Peru and Siberia. But foremost PIH works in Haiti, an island of over 8 million people, just over 1,000 miles from the United States (half the distance from New York to California) and one of the most impoverished countries in the world. In one way, Mountains Beyond Mountains is a story of one man and his incredible determination to fight disease and treat people against major obstacles. He is fueled by the absolute belief that extreme poverty does not diminish people’s worth. In another way, the book is a portrayal that makes plain the terrible poverty that exists, the many causes of that poverty, and the disease and illness which result, in part, from that poverty. Many of the diseases which wreck havoc and kill many in Haiti, like tuberculosis, are very treatable and virtually no longer exist in the United States. (I’m afraid I don’t truly do the book justice, I encourage you to read it for yourself).

While Haiti is a place of extreme poverty, many of the forces that have created poverty there exist in different forms to create the relative poverty that exists in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood how class and socio-economics impact many social justice issues. He often wove the realities of economic inequities into his writings and speeches. In his essay “A Testament of Hope” (1968) he writes it is time that we stopped our blithe lip service to the guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These fine sentiments are embodied in the Declaration of Independence, but that document was always a declaration of intent rather than reality. There were slaves when it was written, there were still slaves when it was adopted; and to this day, black Americans have not life, liberty nor the privilege of pursing happiness ,and millions of poor white Americans are in economic bondage that is scarcely less oppressive.
That economic bondage still exists today as evidenced by the number of people in poverty in the United States. PovertyUSA (http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/povfacts.shtml) reports that the official poverty rate in 2005 (the most current year for which figures are available) was 12.6 percent and the total number of people in the United States below the official poverty thresholds numbered 37 million. Since 2000, the number of poor Americans has grown by more than 6 million. In 2005, the number of people living in extreme poverty, that is, with incomes below half the poverty line, remained the same at 15.6 million people. The number of Americans living in extreme poverty remains the highest level on record, since data first became available in 1975.

For a more global perspective, the inequities of wealth are made clear by the miniature earth project (www.miniature-earth.com) which turns the population of the earth into a small community of 100 people, keeping the proportions we have today. This community would look like this….
 43 live without basic sanitation
 18 live without an improved water source
 6 people own 60% of the entire wealth of the community
 13 are hungry or malnourished
 7 are educated at a secondary level
 18 struggle to live on $1 per day or less
 53 struggle to live on $2 per day or less
 If you keep food in a refrigerator, your clothes in a closet. If you have a bed to sleep in and a roof over your head, you are richer than 75% of the world.

So, I do not believe that we can honor MLK day and fight racism, without also looking at classism (I think it’s fitting that January is also National Poverty Awareness Month). To be clear, I do not think class “trumps” race (an argument which I believe is often made in order to ignore racism.) I believe both are important and connected elements in the inequities which still exist.

I’ve personally been thinking a lot about class the last few years, and struggling with my own feelings and understanding of what it means to be “middle class.” Though I have a roof, refrigerator, bed and closet, I certainly don’t feel “rich.” Like many people our age, Michael and I are worried about “making ends meet,” and now, supporting S. And yet, it is clear that we do have wealth of a certain kind. We have shelter, work, health insurance, (not to mention “basics” like clean water and good sanitation) and, of course, lots of stuff. Stuff that we say we “need” while knowing that is a word defined quite loosely. In some ways, I think that being in each higher socio-economic class means getting to define more things as “necessities. “
And that brings me back to that idea of “best.” Because I know that best isn’t really a finite, concrete place but a moving point determined by available choices. Choices determined by the accident of birth; I mean the accident of where one is born and in what situation. With S’s birth, I am even more aware of the benefits and privileges that I have and can now give to my daughter. That “best” is full of meaning and responsibility.

I write this reflection every year in order to reflect on my own internal struggles. And I’m grappling with fully recognizing the privilege that comes with class and to better understand the impact of class on so many other facets of my life, and on our society. I struggle with the complexities and I am struggling now with how to truly convey my feelings on paper. There is so much more I could write and some much more to learn.

So where am I going with this? Simply, that my struggle is part of my own growth, but it can’t stop me from trying to make change.
Mountains Beyond Mountains makes plain many plights the world faces and the effect of how they build on one another- the impacts of war and political strife, genocide, disease and, of course, poverty. These are factors and problems (for lack of a better word) that seem insurmountable, but that individual people like Dr. Farmer are working to chip away at everyday. But why aren’t more people doing the same? In fact, many people view Dr. Farmer and others in his organization as unrealistic and even foolish. I think that is because the ills seem so large and devastating, they can be overwhelming. The “big picture” can cause inaction, and subsequently, rationalization for that inaction. Questions like “How can we possibly fight tuberculosis, which kills 5, 000 people a day in places without basic medical facilities?” or “How can I, one person, stop genocide?” become “I can’t possibly do that, so why am I trying?” Dr. Farmer would describe this inaction as ambivalence, which he defines as “as the often unacknowledged uneasiness that some of the fortunate feel about their place in the world.”

The singer, songwriter John Mayer has a hit song in 2006 called Waiting for the World to Change. It is often referred to as something of my generation’s What’s Going On?- that is, a musical social commentary on all the ills of the world, in particular an unjust war. But instead of the angst or anger that sings forth from Marvin Gaye’s missive, Mayer’s anthem feels more like the ambivalence Farmer describes. His song gives a sense of “it’s not right, but the sources of power seem too large and unreachable, and it makes me uneasy and I can’t imagine how to fix it, so I’ll just see if something changes on its own.” I certainly hope that isn’t the call of my generation or the ones that follow me.

I hope that we have not lost the necessary fire or fight for change, because we know that social change does not happen on its own. Martin Luther King, and the many individuals involved in the Civil Rights Movement whose spirit he has come to represent, understood this. The forces of structural racism were large, powerful and oppressive; yet, individuals decided to fight despite the cost or the odds.

Farmer calls this “fighting the long defeat” It sounds pessimistic, but I think it’s actually realism combined with the most amazing form of optimism. He can look at the big picture and see how difficult it is, seemingly impossible, to bring health care to one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Yet, he works one patient, one family, one illness at a time. Counting each individual impacted, each patient treated a victory. Each person as worthy. And with this philosophy he has, in turn, made a huge impact and helped change the big picture for the better as well, as did all those who stood up during the Civil Rights Movement.

And that is how I want to approach the world. What I want to encourage on this important day: for each of us to contribute and make a difference in the face “of the long defeat.” Whatever cause speaks to you, in whatever ways small that you can. That is what I want S to learn and to truly believe- that she can make a difference in a thousand tiny ways and they will add up, they will count, and she will make a difference.

With love and hope,
Beth