The Soapbox.

My mom got married once, or maybe more than once.  The time I am referencing sticks out in my mind because we had family that gifted my mother a slab of government issued cheese as a wedding gift.  It came encased in silver with a government stamp on the outside.  My mother used it to make a batch of macaroni and cheese.  I was unfamiliar with government issued food or any type of assistance.  I was lucky to live in a family that didn't need government assistance, we were middle class, I grew up in a great neighborhood, and had a beautiful home.  Our parents had an Olympic sized in ground pool put in and we had many wonderful family memories throwing pool parties and bbqs in the backyard.

Next time I was introduced to government assistance was when I was twelve years old.  I was at my friend Rebecca's house.  Rebecca found her mother's stash of food stamps, which looked to me like monopoly money, a stack of it with a staple in the side.  Armed with $76 in food stamps, we went to the local corner grocery market and spent it on candy bars, soda, popcorn, and anything else our hearts desired.  After stuffing ourselves with the loot we purchased, Rebecca's sister discovered our wrong doings and turned us in to her mother, who scolded us continuously until the punishment required me to leave their home.

Fast forward to 1998, I move back to New York with my infant son to embark on a life of single motherhood.  The life of assistance receiving was still beyond me and I didn't even consider it.  I struggled and spiraled further and further into debt.  With two jobs, one secretarial and one waitressing, I was barely making ends meet.  I luckily was able to secure a job at Samaritan Medical Center as an administrative secretary, and was able to catch back up on my bills and had benefits.  One of my coworkers suggested and helped me through the process of receiving daycare assistance, a county program that subsidized my daycare.  My son was able to go to one of the best daycare center's in Watertown.  I worked at the hospital for three years, it took three years for me to realize that I was smart enough to go back to school and attempt to bring my career to the next level.  At the same time, my younger sister escaped a very abusive relationship and moved into my two bedroom apartment with her infant daughter.  Two single mothers with two small children.  The effects of her relationship were evident to me, she had been isolated from our family and society for so long, she had to sit down and write a list of the things she needed to do to feel human again.  It was a long list.  She had over due fines to pay from turning to the police and receding her statements (in fear of reciprocation).  She no longer had a driver's license, friends, and hadn't worked in quite a while.  The first few weeks, she did what she knew how to do and felt comfortable doing.  She cleaned my apartment and had dinner on the table with all the trimmings by six o'clock sharp (things she was required to do in her relationship).

Even in her state of social discontent, she knew that I was barely making ends meet and asked me why I didn't accept food stamps or housing assistance while I was going to school.  Taking her advice, I went down to the local Department of Social Services.  The instant I walked through the door, the atmosphere change was palpable.  Desolate, hopelessness, a feeling of extreme desperation and sadness came over me.  I sat among the other people and waited for my number to be called.  I sat with a social worker who described to me that I would need to file an order for child support prior to being eligible for anything, which I did.  I then sat through an hour of endless questioning about my living situation, my income, and family life.  My picture was taken and I was given a temporary card for my benefits.

I was deemed eligible for medicaid and food stamps.  I was allocated $230 per month in food stamps.  That was it, I was now one of them.  I guess I was waiting for big slabs of government cheese to be handed to me but that never happened.  I received assistance for the next six years, in which I earned my associates degree from Jefferson Community College, and then my Bachelor's degree from Oswego State University.  I would never, never, had made it if I didn't have the government assistance that I received.

There is a stigma that goes along with carrying an EBT card.  First of all, you're not allowed to dress nicely.  People don't understand.  They don't understand that you shop at the Salvation Army and there are nice clothes there if you really dig around.  Secondly, you cannot borrow a car from someone if the car is nice.  People believe that if you purchase your groceries with an EBT card, then the make and model of any car you are driving must be substandard than what they are driving, and the car you are driving should be at least 10 to 15 years old.  If it's your birthday, and you decide you'd like to purchase yourself a small ice cream cake from Price Chopper, then that is too extravagant, and you will be judged on your judgement of what you spend your food stamps on, because after all, it is THEIR tax dollars anyway.  Lastly, if your card gets demagnified (which happens often), then this means that the cashier may, or may not, know how to type it in manually.  For some reason this is looked upon as an annoyance to those who have to wait in line, much more than if it is a regular debit or credit card.  If you hold up the line with your "annoying" demagnified EBT card, then it is OK if people look down at their nose at you, it isn't real money you earned anyway.  There was even a time where the cashier got frustrated with my demagnified card and refused to complete the sale forcing me to leave the grocery store humiliated and empty handed.

I am now four years clean.  Four years assistance clean.  Even after four years, I still feel the heat burn in my cheeks every time I read something online or hear conversation about the mandating of Florida's assistance recipients being required to undergo drug testing.  Doesn't anyone notice that these people's civil rights are being violated?  Seven percent of a persons paycheck goes to the federal government, from there, thirty of that seven percent goes to social programs.  If food stamps represented ALL social programs (yes, I'm over shooting this here), then two percent of your paycheck goes to food stamps.  For every $100 that is grossed, $2 goes to a family that isn't making it.  I bet that really pisses people off, actually, I know it does and I almost understand why.  You earn the money and someone else is benefiting and it doesn't matter how much the amount is.  Because this is such an upsetting realization, how can a non-assistance receiving person justify openly speaking of such dissatisfaction without being ostracized?  This is how.  You take a small percentage of people that abuse the system.  They make bad decisions in regards to parenting, nutrition, and possibly even abusing drugs (or look like they are abusing drugs).  We don't all really truly know the background of these people, but we do see what floats to the surface, and... we judge.  After we make our judgements, we then take the essence of this population and stereotype an entire group of people that may receive the same type of assistance.  We watch what they buy in the grocery store, how they dress, what they drive, how they talk, and how they look.  Is that a scab on their arm or...are they on heroin?  At what point do we decide that people on assistance are no longer human beings worthy of their civil rights?

If I had known the stigma, the glares, and the judgement that was associated with receiving public assistance ten years ago, I probably would not be the productive citizen that I am today.  I would never have gone in and applied.  Had I known that I would be stereotyped as a drug user, a social derelict, an abuser of the system and other's taxpayer dollars, I would have made a beeline for the doors of the same DSS building that helped me get through school.  Every time I see an article, a pat on the back to Florida, or a posting in regards to people's inadequacies as US citizens because they are on "welfare", I get sick to my stomach.  There will be people that are denied public assistance due to some kind of chemical dependency, so my question is... what happens to their children?  This is a sad state of affairs, and I hope that Florida is truly prepared to take the initiative to back up their programs with rehabilitation and quality assurance.  As a former DSS "waiting room sitter", I am glad I don't have to endure the added humiliation of yet another waiting room for my mandated drug test.

One last thing.  My sister does have an EBT card, and I know the pin.  This means that if she is sick and needs help taking care of her daughter or with shopping etc, I will go to the store with her list and use her card to buy her groceries to help her out.  I am not beyond looking anyone in my line in the eye and saying "Don't dare judge me.", There is an anger in me that will never ever go away because the mind's of people hardly change and all I want to do is create change where social justice is deserved.