BLOG POST RETURNING TO NORMAL: HOW GOOD WAS “NORMAL” FOR YOU?

BLOG POST      RETURNING TO NORMAL:      

HOW GOOD WAS “NORMAL” FOR YOU?

The people who want things to return to “normal”:  are you one of those?  Let me guess. Let me tell you about you.

You are able to work from home.

You are tired of staying inside:  you are “suffering” from “cabin fever”.

You miss your hair stylist.

You miss your nail salon.

You miss your massage therapist.

You miss your housekeeping service.

You miss having dinner at nice restaurants.

You miss going to the movies.

You miss shopping at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, outlet malls

You miss going to your gym.

You miss your kids going to school.

You miss your afternoon free time when your kids are going to:

Soccer practice

Choir practice

Football practice

Swim team practice

Music lessons

College SAT or ACT prep course classes

You miss birthday parties at bars

You miss your sports: baseball, basketball, football, cricket, soccer, golf – the sports that you play

You miss Broadway or off-Broadway theater performances

You miss rooftop parties

You miss weddings, receptions, bridal showers, baby showers

You miss browsing at bookstores

You miss Sunday Brunch with your friends

You miss going to your church

You miss band practice, choir practice, play practice

You miss parades: Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, Gay Pride Day

You miss Disney World, Busch Gardens , Six Flags

You miss planning your vacation

You miss traveling on your vacation

You miss hanging out with friends

You miss family reunions

You miss weekend trips to the vineyards, the apple orchards, the wineries

You miss … you miss…you miss… your former life.

Is that you? Is that right?

You may not miss your pre Covid 19 life if…

You ride the subway, the El, the Marta, the bus to work.

You are an “essential worker”.

You did not know you were an “essential worker” till Coronavirus Pause.

You work for $1.80 an hour … and tips…if you get them.

You wait tables, wash dishes in a restaurant kitchen.

You deliver pizza.

You are a hospital cafeteria worker, a caretaker in a nursing home, a guard in a federal prison.

You are an EMT, a paramedic and you work without health insurance for you and your family.

You are food insecure: you do not know where your next meal is coming from.

You are worried that your child is sick, but, since you work two or three part time jobs you do not have medical insurance or health benefits. Because you work two or three part time jobs,  your child does not qualify for Medicaid.

You live in  a state that refused the Medicaid expansion.

You were stopped and frisked and given a ticket for jaywalking, but since you could not afford your bail, you have been sitting on Riker’s Island for 2 years…without a hearing… without a trial…you have NOT BEEN CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME, but now your life is in danger—not just because you are a juvenile high school student who had a B average and close to perfect attendance before your incarceration, but because you have no PPE, or ability to social distance or physical distance in your cell designed for four men which houses five men.

Besides, you do not have hand sanitizer, masks, face coverings. You have had asthma since childhood, making you at high risk for contracting COVID 19. You have not been tested but the guards have tested positive, 75 of them.

You are a hairstylist, a nail tech, and you pay rent for your station in the salon, only now, you do not have any clients due to COVID 19. 

Your boss could not get the PPP, so you have no income.  You have stood in line for hours at a food bank to feed yourself and your children only to find, that just before you reached the entrance to the Food Bank store, they announce they are sorry: they are out of food.

You are a cleaner, of the gym, the hospital ER, patient rooms, ICU, nurses’ stations.  You have to reuse your mask and you do not have PPE enough. 

You do not work for the hospital as a hospital employee.  So, you  don’t have a pension, health insurance, or benefits.

You work as a contract worker for a company that charges the hospital $100 and hour for your work.  The company provides no health insurance, or benefits for you.  You feel sick, but if you do not come in to work, you will be fired. You have to work sick. Someone said the other day, you are a part of the “Work Sick Culture.” Huh?

You are paid $20.00 an hour.  If you miss work , since you have no sick days, you go to work sick. You hope there will be PPE today. There was none yesterday.

You work in a hospital, but you cannot see a doctor or get a test for COVID 19. You have no health insurance or benefits.

You are a teacher with 35 kids in your class. You have been using your own personal funds to buy paper, art supplies, pencils, notebooks, books, software for your students whom you love.  You miss seeing your  students.  You are teleteaching.

You have not had a raise in 5 years. Before COVID you had to moonlight, taking tickets at a movie theater to make ends meet.  Only now, the theater is closed, and that source of income has evaporated.

You  have been running  out of food stamps before the month ends.  Now, you have to find the food bank and you are worried there may not be food there for your family.

You live in a nursing home on Medicare and your social security. You  were a smoker. You have COPD, emphysema, diabetes and arthritis.

You are at high risk for contracting COVID 19. You have not been tested.

The nursing home staff does not have masks, PPE, and there is not much hand sanitizer. You are unable to socially distance.

You are lonely because your family cannot visit. You do not own a smart phone or laptop so you cannot FaceTime, or Skype, or ZOOM, or Duo.

 You are really scared that you will get COVID 19 and you will wind up suffering on a ventilator for 3 or 4 weeks before you lose your life to COVID 19.

You are a firefighter, police officer, transit cop, public school educator. You are paid by local and state governments, only since the State and the City have had to spend all their money to support hospitals treating COVID 19 patients, you are being laid off.

You do not qualify for food stamps. The unemployment office is backlogged. 

You do not know how you are going to feed your kids. You have a cough and you feel feverish.

You are worried that if you go to the ER, you might endanger your family by contracting COVID 19. You worry about that all the time.

You are unhomed. You live on the streets of New York City. Since Covid 19, you have been able to sleep on the subways.

Only now, the trains and the  subway stations will be closed from 1:00 a.m. till 5:00 a.m. so the trains and stations can be deep cleaned.   You have no water, or soap, or hand sanitizer.

You have no fixed address.  Your income is from coins you pick up from selling aluminum cans. 

You have no health insurance. So, you have not seen a doctor, dentist, psychologist, psychiatrist in 16 years.

You are afraid you will not be safe in the shelters. You eat from the neighborhood church soup kitchen , but now the lines are so long, they have run out of food. They say they are sorry; you have to come back tomorrow.

That is normal for you. You would rather not have things return to normal.

Governor Cuomo said, something like, “We don’t want to go back to “normal”. We can do better than this.

The introduction to the  TV show “Six Million Dollar Man”, the voice-over said: “ We can rebuild him. We can make him better than he was.”

I do not want us to go back to “normal”. “Normal” was great for some of us, but not for all of us. 

 I am not condemning anyone for enjoying the fruit of your labors. 

But this is America. America is not perfect, but American can be better than this.

I was born in 1954, five months after The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas . Kansas Board of Education lost their lawsuit to keep Kansas schools white only.

I grew up in Selma, Alabama , the city that made it possible for you to go to McDonald’s and eat inside any restaurant in America, and won for you – through the blood of martyrs—the right to exercise your right to vote.

I went to the back door at a dentist’s office. I rode in the Colored section – the back-- of the bus in Selma Alabama.

I was spat at and called “nigger” while walking alone in broad daylight on Broad Street when I was twelve years old.

I went to the University Of Alabama. I decided to do that the day I saw and heard Governor George C. Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door”. He said, “Segregation Today. Segregation Tomorrow. Segregation Forever.”

I graduated from the University of Alabama.

I was the second Black woman to earn the Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University Of South Alabama College of Medicine in 1981.  I  completed a three -year Residency in Family Medicine at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. I am a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice.

My life experience tells me that America can be better. America, in some respects, is  better now than when I began my life. But this is not the best America can be.

Each generation has its own mark to make. Each generation has its time to fight, to work, to earn, to advance the American Dream.

The American Dream is not for us alone. It HAS TO BE for the least of us… too.  If not, what good is it?