Several months ago, in another of his excellent efforts, Terrance Heath examined recent legislative efforts by certain increasingly-reprehensible factions of the Republican Party to make innocent victims and/or already-suffering members of our national community suffer just a bit more. If, as in this case, they happen to be schoolchildren, well, you know. Whatever.
It didn’t seem to get much air-play back then, as is the case with most such issues. The path was quickly swept clear to make room for … well, more of the same the next day, and the day after that. We’ve become inured to suffering because we’re too often paralyzed by indecision: what to do and which issue to address today?
Others, as Heath made clear, don’t concern themselves so much with the suffering of the less-fortunate because … well, they just don’t. A nice world they live in: no consequences, no responsibilities, no acknowledgments of their ongoing contributions to the suffering, no worries about the daily erosion of democracy and the principles and values which built this nation. Nope! Ideology and protection of the few.
The new right-wing mantra.
How sad for them. How unfortunate for all of us. What these “leaders” do—and don’t—matters in the real-world. Ideology enacted is not results-free.
Compassionate choices and legislation at the very least holds out the hope of benefitting others. Take away the compassion and concern for the well-being of others, and cold-hearted legislation is reduced to a bottom line consideration. Period.
Lunchtime can be the most socially stressful part of the school day, for any student. Invisible, ever-shifting social boundaries crisscross school cafeterias. So much is riding on where students sit, or even whether they have friends to sit with.
School Lunch students who get subsidized lunches have much more to deal with. Lunchroom practices sometimes reveal students low-income status to their peers. Some schools have separate lines for students receiving subsidized lunches, and students who buy theirs. Others have an "a la carte" line, where students with cash can buy items not available in the subsidized lunch line.
It gets worse.
Thank goodness the privileged ones don’t have to contend with examples such as those Mr. Heath outlined! Aren’t they fortunate? And besides, do children really need to eat all that much? Can’t they just learn without worrying about silly distractions like hunger?
A sampling follows (links to the referenced articles are in the Heath article). One can argue that in some instances these are nothing more than isolated incidents which liberals and conservatives fire at one another as blanket condemnations of the values which guide them. A ring of truth, to be sure. But the weight of evidence, the frequency, and the broad applications of ideology enacted suggest that while the details are different, the guiding philosophy is the same.
A school in Colorado school stamped the hands of students who received free lunches or could not afford meals, and gave them cheese sandwiches, instead of the pizza their classmates got.
At one school in Utah, workers seized lunches from students who owed money in their food accounts, offered them a piece of fruit and a carton of milk, and threw their hot lunches in the trash.
In some Minnesota schools, students who can’t afford lunch are denied food; or they get peanut butter or cheese sandwiches, instead of what their classmates are eating....
Low income students would face even more stigma if the GOP had its way.
As Heath notes in this referenced articles, work to eat or else has become one of the newer, odious suggestions offered by some of the more vile elected officials running around loose in government hallways. He cites a Georgia legislator who has suggested that low-income students do janitorial work like:
‘sweep the floor of the cafeteria,’ to ‘instill in them that there is no such thing as a free lunch.’
Or how about a Fox News inquiry asking if students should have to work to get meals at school? Fourth-graders are well-known slackers and takers; third-graders, too; yeah, same with those lazy six- and seven-year olds. If their parents are sick, or can’t find work, or … you know, just lazy takers, then they ought to pay for the sins of the shiftless, no-good adults in their lives. That’ll teach ‘em!
Or a particularly unenlightened, far-right Republican (but I repeat myself) from West Virginia who proposed a bill that students receiving free lunches “earn their meals by emptying garbage, sweeping out hallways, mowing lawns, etc.”
That same work and eat or don’t philosophy was also urged by one of the more prominent hypocrites on the Right, the charming Newt Gingrich, as the Heath article pointed out.
It’s still a simple question, although the answer seems more nebulous and distressing by the day: What kind of a nation do we choose to be?
Examples such as these suggest the answer is neither enlightened nor encouraging. That should trouble us all.
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