This blog post is different. It is about why I try so hard to see the beautiful wherever I can. Every day I am exposed to some of the ugliest truths. I am a social worker for those of you who do not know. I love my job. I love what I do. I am proud of what I do; however nearly every day I walk away feeling tremendously worried and scared. Not for myself, but for the children I would give my life for.

A 6 year old watched his mother overdose. A 10 year old was abandoned by first his father and then his mother. A child was abused by his step father. And you feel sorry for them. You should. Are their parents villains? How could they do these things or allow these things to happen to their children? Now let's fast forward to these children's 18th birthdays and now do you feel sorry for them? Or are you crossing the street to get away from them? If one of them is shot are you piecing together evidence to prove perhaps he had it coming? 'Well, the school suspended him for having weed paraphernalia. He looked suspicious. He shouldn't have been wearing a hoodie.' The girl who had no father and whose mother was depressed all of her childhood. The girl who was molested at 7. She is 22 with 3 kids now. She's a whore. She's milking the system. Stealing your tax dollars. Do you feel sorry for her now?

There is a lot to be said about personal responsibility.  I believe in it. I encourage it. I believe that when you have children you have a duty to step up and the things that happened to you must come second, third, fourth to that child. But what about the responsibility that we have as a community and as a humanity? We put systems in place supposedly to help these children. I work within the system and I will be honest with you- the systems are designed to fail. Education, social services...they are designed to reinforce what people already believe to be true about race and class.  If a child fails we are blameless because they had
'chances'. If they succeed it is another sign that some people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Some people are just better right? (Please note- that's sarcasm)  Another stereotype reinforced. The systems are designed to maintain a status quo that thrives on society remaining as it is. Are we the villains then? But then how many of us debt ourselves and work for little pay so that we can be the villain? I would say next to none of us think that it would be great to make very minor salaries so that we can reinforce stereotypes and be told 'Oh your job must be so hard, but so rewarding. But I would never do that' or 'Oh, but you get summers off.'

Then who is the villain? Who does it benefit for the system to fail is the real question. It isn't the kids, it isn't the teachers, it isn't the social workers, and it sure isn't the communities that the kids come from. I am not going to answer that though. I just want you to think about it. And here is what I really want you to think about- don't these children deserve better? We need to start challenging one another to ask- why don't WE deserve better? Because we all deserve better than what is going on. I hear people speak in disparaging ways about communities and I wonder when did zip codes begin defining community? When did we lose focus that we are a humanity- a collection of humans- a community all of us? And when did we lose focus of empathy? We must teach and learn empathy so that we don't fight in solitary, but in solidarity. So that our struggle doesn't turn to greed. So that we fight together with the understanding that WE ALL DESERVE BETTER.

When systems don't believe in love because it isn't measurable or in compassion because it isn't billable there is a real problem. It is ALL of our problem. It is rooted in race and class no matter how much we want to think that it is not. I am not saying this to be hurtful. I am not saying it to point fingers. I am saying it because this is the truth I am living. We re-routed a bus of children today because two blocks from one of the children's home was a shooting with two victims. One of our children had an Uncle killed by gun violence around when Newtown occurred. So many of our children have been abused. We feel sorry now. We skirt consequences for them now because of our sympathy, but we will throw them away when they are 18. Tears flow from my eyes as I write this because how many of these children that I love will die before they are even 18? They deserve better.

Who is the villain? Perhaps we all are for being complacent. But I want to be a hero. I deserve better. You deserve better. We all deserve better. When we judge people we must take a moment to think more largely, because there is a bigger story. A bigger story then one person. A bigger story than one community. It is the story of us- do we want to re-write it though? Or do we want it to continue as is? I think that we can all be heroes. Let's find the beauty in one another.