Challenge The Status Quo by Amber Poole

CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO
by Amber Poole

Take the evil out the people, they’ll be acting right
‘Cause both Black and White are smoking crack tonight
And the only time we chill is when we kill each other
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.”
- Tupac Amaru Shakur

The hyper-rich do not care about you. The government does not care about you. Big Pharma doesn’t care about you nor does the CEO of most any other billion-dollar Corporation give a damn, especially the healthcare industry. And celebrities certainly don’t give you a second thought. Yet they set the pace. They make the rules by which you feel bound to follow.

During the 1990’s when my son was still in grade school and fast food was cheap, and I was broke I could go to Jack-In-The-Box and grab burgers from the dollar menu. I often thought on those nights when I was feeding my boy soulless, over-processed, junk food, loaded with preservatives that the wife of the CEO of Jack-in-The-Box was feeding her children wild caught Atlantic Salmon, organic vegetables, and freshly made apple cake served up by either cook, maid or nanny, before they were safely tucked into bed with nary a care in the world.

Not that I begrudged them the right to their riches and whatever luxuries it afforded them, though I did object to the conspicuous inequality in the lives of our children. While theirs were fattened on healthy nutritious foods, mine was fed on hormone-treated beef and goodness knows what other chemicals and harmful ingredients. The very least a child should be afforded is nutritious food, a basic education, and decent housing.

It could have been mid-19th Century London, where offensive smells, dirt and disorder were the standard; where children were more likely to die before celebrating their fifth birthday.

My job was a job, well enough, but it lacked anything of interest or creativity and did nothing but exhaust me by the end of day. Yes, I collected my wages after two weeks of work and along with that came a few days reprieve before it started all over again, the endless cycle without goal or achievement or meaning. Let me be clear. I wasn’t looking for happiness.

I didn’t mind the struggle. That’s not what hounded me. It was an existential quest for something greater, a life bearing a purpose, something not dictated and demanded by the status quo that I longed to create for our lives. But I was one. One single mother and that was near forty years ago. I can’t even contemplate how difficult it is today combining short funds, social media and advanced technology.

How would I counsel my younger self from the vantage point of today? What would I say to that woman who struggled, who didn’t object to struggle, who was strong, but also compliant because she felt she had no other option than to submit.

One thing I would have done differently is to figure out how to gather other women at my socio-economic level and join resources. It never occurred to me to do such a thing forty years ago. Although, what was it I did think about all the time and what did I imagine?

I loved to read, and I read a lot. I liked to read about writers and artists who defied the system, the status quo. What was stopping me from doing the same? Fear and feeling isolated and alone. Feeling different, like I didn’t measure up to such an independent life. I can tell you; fear loses its hold over you in numbers. I would definitely suggest to her to look for others of like mind and find a large enough space in which to live together.

Henry Miller moved his family to Carmel, California in 1944, up a winding, near unpassable road. He hadn’t a penny to his name. He bartered watercolor paintings for bread. He wrote. He struggled. He begged and borrowed but he lived his own life. He was an independent thinker.

Most all the artists I read about who refused to surrender to the status quo suffered from all the things we do: addiction, divorce, betrayal, death and hope, surprise, peaceful moments, and joy. But they made their own way, paved their own path. Even those artists with children drew their own maps.

More than anything, I abhor seeing single, working mothers laboring through their days without a spare minute for themselves. Without a dream. How can a woman create under such circumstances? How can she be the best she can be for her children when she’s got her shoulder to the grindstone, alone, always looking over that shoulder for bill collectors, corrupt landlords, vulnerable to the street?

What does your struggle look like today? Is it possible that a group of women can change our own lives so that we are not imprisoned by the system?

It’s a form of resistance. And make no mistake: the toxic patriarchy in power has no love for you! NONE. They only want you until you’re used up and then they discard you and go after your children.

Drop me a note at BDB. This is the seed.