Pause

Let me put "My Bitches, continued" on hold.  Trying to find really good examples, I have very few I am able to share.  They are either too petty, too typical or not really bitchy, some even too funny.  Trying to conjure up memories of really nasty, mean actions has brought more pranks to mind than anything.  I've thought of a lot of bad behavior, but none really so much worse than what "normal" people do.  I do think teachers have their own hang ups and are solitary, competitive, lonely and disfunctional, but otherwise essentially good creatures and I guess, lovely and merry little pranksters.  I can't wait to share a series of fun memories with you, but first a word from the Insight Center for Community Economomic Development which this year released a report called "Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America's Future."  According to the Utne Reader, the information in this report was picked up in one NPR story, two opinion columns and one newspaper article.  Yawn.  I did as I read this, sleepily dozing in my bed one night this week.  Shortly before my eyes popped out of my head. 

Wealth--as defined in this survey--is not income, but assets minus debts.  Says the article ("Wealth Gaps Yawn--And So Do the Media"; Utne Reader, September-October, 1010; unattributed):

In the United States, single black women have a median wealth of just $100, while Hispanic women come in at $120.  The median wealth of black men is $7,900; white women and men are better off ($41,500 and $43,800 respectively).  Looking at people in their chief working years, ages 36-49, the gap grows even more cavernous: White women own about 60 percent of white men's median wealth, which surges to about $70,000.  Women of color, meanwhile, have a median wealth of $5...(which is) .05 percent of  the wealth owned by men of color in the same age group ($11,000.)

Discussing these facts with upperclassmen today, my mostly white class was astounded.  One student raised his hand to state that black women have $5 median wealth because they list all their assets in their husbands' names, "like my mom does." 

"That could be," I tried to smile but I knew it was stiff. I was struggling. "What about the possibility of the single mother with multiple children whose boyfriends have left her to raise the kids?"

"Bingo," responded the only black student in the room.

"Oh," said one.

"I never thought of that," said another.  They are saying this, even as many of them have experienced it themselves.

"She might graduate from high school if she is lucky but she most likely won't make it to college.  If she can get a job, how will she work with 2 or 3 or more children?"

"She'll get child support," answer two different students at the same time.

"Will she?  Will the boyfriends pay child support?"

We continued to discuss the Five Dollar Woman for quite a long time.  We acknowledged that we were making grand generalizations and that stereotypes are dangerous.  We talked about what a median is and what we might find on both sides of it and how individuals vary.  But we were also forced to acknowledge the Five Dollar Woman.  Significantly, the students didn't seem to need to assign blame. We know she might be on welfare; in fact, the "w" word came up.  No one seemed to be jealous of her welfare check.  We didn't discuss whether she smokes cigarettes, drinks too much or shoots heroin.  No one said she shouldn't have babies or have so many, and no one said she shouldn't have sex if she can't afford babies, and no one said she should use birth control.  No one said it is $11,000 Man's Fault or $70,000 Peoples' Faults or President Obama's Fault or those damn Republicans' faults.  They didn't say it was the fault of public education or Five Dollar Grandma. 

Maybe it was because we'd just finished reading If the World Were a Village.  Students had been shocked to learned that in a mock up of the global village scaled down to 100 people, 50 of them are hungry part or all of the time.  They gasped audibly when I read the next line: "At least 20 more are significantly malnourished." I knew a few of them would go hungry tonight. 

They do not judge or pity Five Dollar Woman.  They feel compassion.  They find it unacceptable that she exists and they wonder why they haven't heard more about her.  I've been wondering about this myself.