When we lined up for school lunches, there were two lines: one for the kids who could afford to pay full price, and another one for me. I could not.
Those who ridicule welfare moms would say this was a failing of my parents.
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But the truth is: poverty is not our failing. We do not belong in separate lines, in separate zip codes, in separate schools, in separate communities, in separate stores. We are no less. We are no different.
Our poverty is just the cost of a system rigged to benefit those greedy few willing to sell us all out to line their own pockets. They are willing to destroy our environment, to send new moms back to work before they’ve bonded with their babies, to leave our veterans sick on the streets without homes or healthcare, to enslave young people with inescapable student debt, to make it impossible for some kids to even consider going to college. They build prisons for profit rather than public schools for our children, send our sons and daughters to war for oil, leave our children hungry, homeless and without healthcare. All for money. They are willing to let people die not because there are not cures or treatments, but because they do not consider these lives — our fathers, our mothers, our sons and daughters — worth the cash.
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I’m voting for Bernie because even though I’m no longer poor, even though I’m one of the lucky few who somehow found my way out, I’ve seen too many other beautiful souls along the way whose radical potential has been lost to our planet due to the shame, sadness and symptoms of poverty. Because I’ve seen too many of us squander our gifts on lives not meant for us because we’re scared we won’t be able to feed ourselves or our children.
And in my heart, I’ll always be the little girl who stood in the poor kids’ line.