The "Undeserving"
" Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege." Doctor Who
No-one cries out "but what about the drug addicts?" when discussing those who sell arms to dictators, or tobacco to children, have sweat shops with child labour or sell our health care to their family's healthcare firms. If they are "it" girls and party boys we don't hold them accountable for their actions, or that their wealth was stolen from other people (it's not stealing if an Empire does it?)That they are rich because they took it with a nice side order of genocide, slavery and contempt.
No; that would speak to white guilt and privilege and that requires some kind of empathy.
No-one holds the rich undeserving accountable. No-one them expects to have to apologise for their ancestry or birth. Or who and how they conduct their relationships and marriages. They get to have "blended" not "broken homes".
The whole way we speak about the rich and poor pours more and more salt into the wounds.
What makes a human being "of value"? Is it the money you earn? Is it something you achieve? Something you endure?
If a human being with money never has their validity of person-hood questioned why then do we do it to the poor? Why do we erode their person and blame them?
Blame is the discharge of vulnerable or uncomfortable feelings. It's actually quite simple.
Because they can't fight back.
If you take enough from someone they are too busy staying just alive to protest. Make them afraid and tell them they are nothing, evil, scum; long enough and they turn away.
It is our job then to fight, give voice to the voiceless.
To show them that they, at least to us, are still people and have value. That the children eating out of bins, the LGBTQ+ homeless teens, that the injured, disabled and ill are not trash.
That where their is life, their is hope, and maybe even kindness. That one person can make a difference.
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