We live and work in a sick society. I know this isn’t a revelation as much as a cruel reality. The disparity between those with means and those without is noticeable in every available metric dissecting the spending habits of Americans, credit card indebtedness, retail, stock market portfolios. In this sick system, I am so tired of hearing about the ultra-rich whine and complain about the “difficulties of being made to pay their fair share in taxes.” Currently the billionaire class, self-described paragons of capitalism, in their own words “patriots,” philanthropists, job creators are feeling the heat of the glaring lights of inequity, inequality, unfairness, and genuine resentment by the proletariat. They don’t like it, so much so, a billionaire just commented that “tax the rich” is equivalent to a slur. However, I wonder if anyone is voicing the needs of the poor.
On one of my recent hospitalist shifts, I met a grandmother on dialysis whose SNAP benefits were recently cut by $30 and she had to spend $50 a month on food. Living on a fixed income, unable to hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet, she was struggling. She was broken, poor, felt isolated and worried about hunger for her and her immediate family. Yet, it was clear to me that in our current society, her plight is not only ignored, it’s turned into academic discussion around disparities and other code words for poverty that is so shameful in a country that is apparently able to find money for wars of choice, supporting the military-industry complex nationally and internationally, investing in the very worst of tech advancements which pave the path to dystopia, ballrooms of choice, renovations of choice, crypto ventures, global galas around peace, but never enough money or resources for poor people.
So as a doctor who works in one of a long list of underserved areas in the United States, I try to remind myself and others around me providing care for vulnerable people that what we see daily is the actual reality of life in America. Those in people-facing jobs (careers where we must engage with the sadness of seeing poor people of all hues struggle day in and day out to make ends meet) only to be told, do more, work more, find more time, show up, and never complain. I too am sick of platitudes, manipulations of faith traditions that promote the myth of meritocracy in a country ripe with handouts to the rich, powerful, and wealthy.
Per the Pew Research Center’s calculator, as an inhabitant of the upper income tier, I must recognize my own privilege and recenter around my goals, mission, and ambitions. I am fortunate that I get work in a place where I can sit with, listen to, engage with, and advocate for those, capitalism is failing consistently. Philanthropy and food pantries are not the answers to fix systemic illnesses that are underpinned by systems of power that focus on the wealthy and their schemes to maintain and consolidate wealth fairly and unfairly in broad daylight.
In a social ecosystem where we are told to hold those with money and power in reverence, I worry about this nation’s future. I worry about the downstream impacts of recent political decisions at all levels of government, which undo the work and efforts of the 1940s-1960s, so much so, to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s often quoted dream a historical myth and not a reality. I sometimes like to think about the fact that if MLK had not been politically assassinated, what America may have looked like as MLK and those in his vicinity were working tirelessly to champion the plight of America’s poor and magnifying the ethos of being an American as captured by “E Pluribus Unum.” ‘Till then, we all must do better and do whatever little we can do to help our patients, neighbors, and communities because the struggles facing broad swaths of society are worsening by the day in systems designed to fail those who are marginalized, working class, working poor, and those outright living in poverty.
Sameen Farooq is an internal medicine physician.
