Metacentricities

You probably heard: a worker at Wal-Mart was trampled to death (and others injured) during a mad rush on the store because of sales this Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Apparently, two thousand people were willing to wait in line for hours, and rush the store entrance at 5:00 am to get the best deals on plasma screen TVs and Nintendo Wiis.

I’ve been trying, ever since I heard about it, to wrap my mind around it. To understand why people are desperate enough for consumer goods that they are willing to not only wait hours in line, but trample people along the way.

Of course, I live a privileged life, comparatively. I may be losing my health insurance, but what is true is that the $200 price differential between a plasma screen TV last week, and the sale price this week isn’t enough to break the bank (although it begs the question - if it is enough, should one be buying that thing in the first place?) I also don’t have children or a partner who expect things for Christmas, so I have absolutely no externally imposed holiday shopping stress.

Given the deepening economic crisis, and impending collapse of our unsustainable system, I think maybe this should provide an object lesson to us. Is anything that anyone obtained on Black Friday worth even one death (or one injury)? Buy Nothing Day is, at least, one way to make sure you don’t get hurt while out shopping on Black Friday. But perhaps it will be a way to move us from the unsustainable path that we’ve been on, to one that is more sustainable for the future.

I’m celebrating “Buy Nothing Christmas” - a relatively new tradition that I will continue from now, forward. I try not to buy anything except food and necessities between now and Christmas, and I’ll be donating livestock from the Heifer Project in honor of family members, and creating a cool mix tape for friends. I want to celebrate Jesus’ birthday (yes, yes, I know it’s not really his birthday, but that’s for another post) in a way that he might appreciate, not in a way that I can be sure he would distain.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Proposition 8 - both before the election, and after it. In truth I have mixed feelings about the whole gay marriage thing (for example, how it happened that lesbians went from thinking it was an institution of patriarchy to something we wanted,) but that’s a different post for a different time.

I’m saddened, of course, that a lot of people in California voted to add a discriminatory amendment to the consitution. What has been troubling me lately is the response among some in the LGBT community to demonize those who voted for Prop 8 (for example, on one local e-mail list I’m on, they are being called “H8ters”, and often painted with the same brush.)

I think until we are willing to look at why people chose to vote for Proposition 8 squarely, we won’t be in a position to take right action. It’s far to simplistic to suggest that it’s simply because they hate us. And I think it’s also too simplistic to suggest that they all just listened to their pastors and were brainwashed. I’m sure that there are some people who fit in those categories, but I refuse to think that explains it all - that it explains that the majority (slim, but still) of voters in California felt strongly enough about this to vote for an amendment to the state constituion, to put their check/arrow/finger next to the line that said “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”

Why is it that people fight against civil rights? What is it that causes them to cast ballots, or act in ways that promote discrimination? Fear is most often the motivation for treating other human beings badly. You ask: what are they afraid of? I suspect they are afraid of the same things we are: they feel their life threatened by change, and they want to have an explanation for it. They want to have a way to understand what they can do to make things better. They happen to understand it in ways that are far different than we do - but I refuse to think that most of them actively wish us harm. (Perhaps I’m naiive, but I’m stubborn.)

And, for our part, we feel scared too. We feel scared that our rights will be taken away permanently, and that our lives will be threatened. But we can’t act out of fear - we need to act out of compassion and a desire for dialogue. And, of course, we do need to act clearly and strongly to challenge proposition 8 both in court, and with another ballot measure next cycle.

I wasn’t going to blog about the election. Mostly because I don’t really have anything especially articulate to say about what happened on Tuesday that hasn’t already been said, not only about Obama’s win, but about the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I talked with my parents election night, and they said they could have never imagined a Black man as President in their lifetimes. Even I found it hard to imagine, even with Hollywood’s suggestions. And, of course, the passage of Proposition 8 is a sad counterpoint to the amazingness of Obama’s election.

But what I’m writing about is that I need something from President Barack Obama. And I need it right now.

I moved from a state that guarantees reasonably priced health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions to a state that makes it impossible to get reasonably-priced insurance with pre-existing conditions. In California, as someone who is self-employed, It seems I can’t join a group to get reasonable coverage without getting a job. I thought that HIPPA would save me, because I’ve had coverage. But it will cost me almost 2/3 of what I pay each month in rent to get HIPPA coverage, which, at the moment, feels pretty unaffordable. And the state plan (called the California Major Risk Program) will cost only a little less (and covers a lot less, and only provides up to $75,000 in coverage.)  And as someone who has liked being self-employed, it makes me think maybe I should get a job. Or I may end up going without insurance for a while (that is, until Obama fixes things,) which feels very scary.

I have always been an advocate single payer health care, but between having a stable academic job, then living in Massachusetts, it never occurred to me that this particular situation would happen to me. It always felt a lot easier to call this system corrupt and evil, when I wasn’t caught in it. Caught in it, it feels like there is something wrong with me. The rejection letters I get from insurers make me feel like it’s my fault that they won’t insure me.

Of course, it’s not my fault. It’s the fault of insurance companies only interested in profit, and politicians without the courage to do something about it. I know fixing this is high on President-elect Obama’s list of things to do. If only for selfish reasons, I hope he gets to it sooner rather than later.