Gratitude 111

This blogpost, Gentle Reader, is about poverty.  I am grateful that I am poor.  I have learned so much and acquired so much empathy for others who struggle with poverty, want, hunger, and social ridicule and discrimination just for being poor.  I am not going hungry, I have basically enough money to meet my most basic needs, plus something extra in the bank for emergencies, and/or foreign travel.  By Third World standards, I am not really poor.  By Second World standards, I could do worse and could do better.  By First World standards, I'm dirt-shit poor.

I do suffer from more first world problems than I used to: where to vacation, what airline to fly, what kind of hotel to book, what restaurants I'm going to eat at, etc., and even though money is a bit tight right now, I have a big fat savings account that I can break into any time I need, but I don't want to because it's primarily my vacation fund.  (Never mind that there is enough in there for two years' worth of holidaying, but you are going to promptly unread this, now, aren't you, Gentle Reader?)  Talk about having stuff to be grateful for!

My earlier experiences of poverty were far more brutal than my current.  However, I have never gone hungry.  I have at times lost a lot of weight but I always seemed to get just enough to eat, even if it meant harvesting edible weeds from the backyard, from roadsides and vacant lots, hand-washing my clothes and walking ten miles from Richmond to downtown Vancouver because I couldn't even rub together a couple of coins for bus fare.  And then I was homeless.  One particularly brutal memory is of when I was making a three egg omelette for dinner.  I had only three eggs left, and no money to buy food.  One of the eggs fell and broke on the kitchen floor.  Without thinking twice, I was suddenly down on my hands and knees sucking that raw egg off the floor, an appetizer for my two egg omelette.

I still earn at work a scandalously low wage, just quarters above minimum, but living in government-subsidized housing helps take the edge off.  I'm also a kick-ass budgeter, whether I want to be one or not.

So, why am I still not quite all happy-happy-joy-joy about everything?  Well, let me produce for you a dear little email exchange with Ali Hassan of Laugh-Out-Loud, a comedy program on the CBC, who has not had the balls to reply to me, and to his colleague Tracy Rideout, who did:

I do not appreciate Irwin Barker's jokes about panhandlers.  It seems that the poor remain the last remaining target for hate speech.  I was homeless, myself, once and it is no laughing matter.  Please address this on future programs, or at least respond and apologize.
thanks

Dear Mr. Zacharias -

The late Irwin Barker was a philanthropist, an educator and a staunch supporter of all people's - especially those who are marginalized.  The playwright Bruce Clark wrote, in his portrayal of  Irwin Barker, the following:

ROY
(reading) 
“I always leave a mint on the sidewalk -- just so homeless people will know what it’s like to stay in a nice hotel.” 

CALVIN
It’s funny. But maybe it’s a little mean. 

ROY
The joke is a mordant statement on how we ignore the weakest members of society.

It is never our intention at the CBC to be disparaging of any members of society. In comedy, we seek to explore the truths in what are often, ugly subjects.  We strive to  present fair and balanced programming,  with the understanding that there will at times, be subjects that are discomfiting to some.

Thank you for your comment. We appreciate feedback from our listeners, and I hope that you will continue to listen to Laugh Out Loud.

Sincerely,

Tracy L. Rideout

Producer, Laugh Out Loud

Executive Producer, CBC Radio Comedy

Nice try.  No buy.  I am a poor person, economically, and you cannot tell me that I don't know when I am being bashed.  I expect much better than this.

Ali Hassan, by the way, is Muslim, brown-skinned and fat.  No one would think of mocking him for any of these traits, and justly so.  So, what gives Mr. Hassan the idea that it is still open season on the poor?  We seem to be the final acceptable refuge for cowardly stand-up comics looking for an easy target for harvesting cheap laughs.  I say, it's time to put a stop to this nonsense and call it out for the unaceeptable abuse that it really is.

I am a poor person and no one can tell me when I'm not being bashed!

So sue me, Ali!

So sue me, Tracy!

Just the sort of thing people of your mentality would do to a poor person!