ON GIVING TO THE POOR

 About a year ago during this time, I created a habit of tipping the cashiers who check out my groceries one dollar.

As the Winter Holidays approached, I suggested to them and their managers a ‘tip jar’ at each register and they all agreed!

But when the jars disappeared, I asked what happened and they said that many of the customers balked at seeing it!

Now keep in mind, I live on the Upper East Side, still one of the whitest and richest areas of NYC!

So folk balk at giving money to the homeless ‘because you just don’t know what they’ll spend it on plus scammers’

and folk balk at tip jars for grocery clerks (essential workers) but are quick to scapegoat store chains and presidents 

and ‘the system’ while going from ALL LIVES to BLACK LIVES MATTER in a span of a heartbeat because it’s’trending’!

You know what I’ve found is beneficial for repenting of my misogynoir conditioning? Giving to the poor (and even the not so poor). When my heart breaks in one area, it breaks in all areas.

Some of us can even afford to adopt a neighbor during these harrowing times. Imagine if everyone did even one small thing.

If we all tipped the clerk one dollar, that would be $300 for the people checked out that day, and they would FEEL like an essential worker!

Or if each one of us who could, looked out for our neighbor. The 30% with eviction notices would be looked out for by the 70% of us who can STILL afford to pay. Crisis averted!

We can do whatever we want in this mist of a life we’re given! All we lack is conviction and imagination.

Be well.