We needed a correction. We're getting an overcorrection.

To quote my friend Annie Gottlieb of The Big No

Annie on Assimilation

I took a walk today to the school where I will be substitute teaching for the next two weeks. It is deep in the heart of West Philadelphia, what used to be a working class black neighborhood, now it’s more of a poor black neighborhood. Still, American flags adorn many of the porches, neat little tiny yards are planted with flowers in the spring and summer, and there is very little trash on the streets once you get out far West.

Generations of people have lived here, raised families here, sent their kids to the school I will teach at and the school I taught at this week.

Places like this are hit hard by things like the pandemic. People work the kinds of jobs that don’t go virtual. I know a lot of hardworking people from this neighborhood from a support group meeting I used to go to before it disbanded during the pandemic. Retired police officers, transit workers, people who owned their own businesses doing construction or plumbing or carpentry. Women who cleaned houses while raising children.

Their children are the victims of the gun violence epidemic. Decades of liberal leadership of the city has not solved very much, but as I watch the various actions of the new Trump administration, I fear for my neighbors, especially the kids.

It’s hard to explain to those who have never felt it how damaging economic insecurity is, especially for children. The anxiety that your parents can’t hide from you. Having to move around a lot. Not knowing for sure if you can keep your pet. The fridge being empty. Mom having to tell you that we can’t afford a new dress or to go to a movie or whatever it is that other kids seem to have.

The suspension of Medicaid and SNAP did not happen, and I don’t think it will. I hope that the practical end of the Republican Party will realize that throwing tons of people off the ledge from poverty into deep poverty will cause chaos, wreck the economy, and make a mess for big businesses like healthcare and pharmaceutical companies who need the Medicaid dollars to function.

A close friend of mine who is very conservative (and a former socialist, from a long time ago) said that a shake up was necessary, and that out of these shake ups new ideas can come. I certainly hope so. Massive reforms to education to give these kids a chance at a better life might be a start. Don’t get me started…

Yet I worry about the people who can so quickly fall through the cracks. I have spent most of the last ten years one emergency away from disaster, with the exception of a few years when I made good money and could breathe again for awhile. One missed SNAP payment can mean not having food. People who are poor have no margin. I remember all the times my freelance clients were late paying me, while I scrambled to cover the shortfall so that my bills would get paid. And I have a good education and tons of social capital! I have always managed to make it, but not without a ton of help from family and friends. I always find a way to pay it forward and pay it back. Maybe that’s a lot of why I love teaching urban kids. I get it, and I can help.

I love the book Evicted by Matthew Desmond. It provides such a clear window into what it’s like to be poor. The anxiety, the fear, the way it makes impulse control so much harder. The toll it takes on children. When I read the book I was working on a PhD full time, substitute teaching full time in the poorest district in the state, and living with my mom while she was trying to recover from a surgical medical error and we were both really having a hard time. We had beautiful Christmas trees to comfort us, and a sweet golden retriever who was the farm dog. Snow fell that year and my 2004 Subaru Outback got this Southern girl through driving in it.

We read Evicted in one of my classes. It was on the social determinants of health, I think, and I was in a class with a lot of MPH students. When we talked about food stamps, one of them asked if they were actual stamps. I showed them my then current EBT card and explained how it worked. I saw a room full of well off young people’s jaws drop. How could this successful PhD student be on SNAP?

It can happen to anyone, if you don’t have family money or a spouse who can support you. An accident, an illness, a layoff, a bad breakup… it can happen. The social safety net really is a lifesaver. It is impossible to make plans, to see possibilities, when you are in mortal terror for your survival.

It’s not exactly a state secret that I have moved to the Right in recent years. The Progressives’ response to October 7 was just the last straw on an already overburdened camel’s back. I live with the gap between progressive ideology and reality on a daily basis. I want a correction, but like my friend Annie, I think we are having an overcorrection. And I fear for those who will fall through the cracks.

I pray that forces of sanity on all sides will prevail. I have a recurring fantasy that Josh Shapiro will come to save us all. But if not that Jewish Democratic Josh, then to quote Yoda… “There is another.”

And with that, beloved family and friends, I will say laila tov.