Collective Trauma, The Fallout 2

Today, Gentle Reader, I am going to write about privilege. Not specifically White Privilege though that does indeed exist and there is way too much of it. I am thinking more of the Brahmin caste that exists in all countries and in all cultures. The privileged elite. Even though here in Canada they all tend to be overwhelmingly white we now have many honorary Caucasians joining their ranks: persons of Asian, South Asian, African, aboriginal, and other racially visible heritages. Nothing really wrong with that, I suppose, except for one little sticking point. They all, by fiat of economic status, wealth, social connection, and academic success (always achieved by having good family and social status) they get to pick and enjoy the low hanging fruit, they get to sip on the ambrosia of the gods from chalices of solid gold and platinum in their divine Olympus palaces. They have all the wealth and means available to conceal their shame, their wounds, their affliction, their weakness, their nakedness, the very trauma and the festering and bitter fruit of trauma that every single member of the human family has to carry in their genes. Oh, but they lie about it, they dissimulate because the mantra is: "We are special. We are worthy. We are gods. And we are your superiors." Even if their kids are among the thousands of little idiots killing themselves on fentanyl and other lethal drugs usually thought to be the purview of the underprivileged and marginalized. And their mommies and daddies? Well, there's always alcohol. Not just any old booze or plonk, but the good stuff. The best craft beer, the finest imported wines, the best scotch and vodka and Oh! the martinis! How did people possibly live before there were martinis! It is widely known that well off people have longer lives, and enjoy better health throughout their lives than the rest of us. They have at their fingertips all the money they need to purchase the best food, the best health care, the best holidays. the best homes. They go through life completely insulated from the unpleasant realities that poor people have to live with day after day. We don't have access to affordable decent food. Even earning a little bit above minimum wage, as I do, simply means that I can afford to buy a little more broccoli and a few extra strawberries every week. I cannot just wander off to Choices, the yuppie supermarket just five minutes away, or Nestors, the other yuppie supermarket just ten minutes away. I have to go to No Frills, always in other neighbourhoods and I have to plan my shopping routine around my work day and my outings if I am going to have access to cheap, affordable food, and this causes stress, which can also elevate my blood pressure if I'm not careful. Likewise my medications. I cannot afford the exorbitant dispensing fee at the Shopper's Drug Mart just one block from my apartment, so for something affordable I have to go to the No Frills Pharmacy on the other side of town, almost, and likewise, for my other medication to the cancer clinic at the hospital, because otherwise I can't afford these things that are necessary to my health and wellbeing (for my thyroid and to keep a tumour from growing any bigger on my pituitary, if you must know). Lack of privilege, which means lack of money, translates into more stress and anxiety and poorer health outcomes. In the meantime the privileged classes go on their merry way, enjoying life and batting down their neurotic depression and anxiety with one drinky-poo after another, because in the final analysis, they are every bit as fragile, wounded and damaged as the rest of us, and there are very few of them who are going to have the integrity or the presence of mind to openly admit it. We are all in this together, Gentle Reader, and instead of inciting resentment and hate against the privileged classes I am going to recommend instead pity and compassion. They really don't know how damaged they are, and when they do find out they very seldom have the inner fortitude to be able to stand the revelation. We really do need one another, now more than ever. And there has never been a time in my lifetime that people have appeared to be so cut off from one another. But I have hope and sometimes I see little happenings that inspire and encourage me. For example, yesterday on the Skytrain, a nice middle class young woman was seated with her nice middle class young friend. She was eating some kind of snack out of a paper bag. A street fellow seated across from her asked if she would save him the last piece. She gave him the bag and said he could have all that's left. They had a very friendly and warm if brief conversation, then the street fellow got off at the next station. Her friend asked her why she would do that and talk to someone like him. she replied that it's always better to be nice to people. Then I weighed in, and mentioned that the key to having friends is by being one. I thanked her for what she did for that man, and she positively beamed.