Ask my Somalian friend Margaret how "lucky" are the American Poor?

First a little back story about Margaret:
...She is my Shero in so many ways. One time, while we were protesting about funding the poor together I asked her which was worse ~ being poor in America or being poor in Somalia? I expected the obvious answer, but before I tell you what she said here is a little bit of her story:

Margaret's entire family was killed, her children, her husband and her home was destroyed. So she fled to a refugee camp where she was raped and used for slave labor.

When the Catholic church rescued Margaret and brought her to America, they gave her 2 years to find her way before they withheld any more support. Before she came to America, Margaret left her Muslim faith and became a devout Catholic and she attends mass wherever she can find time. Margaret worked her butt off in a McJob here in Seattle, but did not make enough to pay for a home. So she found herself homeless and on the street for two years, using the nightly shelter system before she could be put in transitional housing. But not before she caught the deadly TB that is going around among the homeless.

I met Margaret while I was working in transitional housing as a computer tech in Americore. I could not help but notice how kindly and helpful she was with other Somalian refugees ~ many of them in shock, not only from the horrors they had experienced in their country, but also with the culture shock they experienced her in America after they were "saved" ~ IF you want to call it that.

While Margaret was from a nuclear family as one wife, many of these Somalians are 2nd or 3rd wives whose husbands abandoned them and their children during the up-rises that left their families in peril. When they were brought here, many of them were left to fend for themselves in a country where they did not speak English and their children were left bereft. They are good people and fiercely proud to become Americans ~ as is Margaret. But they also suffer because they do not know our ways and their children, who are just wonderful kids, are often left to be the breadwinners, especially the eldest males.

Back to Margaret and our protest together. While we were marching at our state capitol, we walked together in solidarity with police on horseback walking besides us and about 2000 others. She noted how friendly they were and that, if this had been in her country, they would have most likely tried to kill us for speaking out. It was then I asked her what she felt about poverty in America and why she was marching in our protest for better funding. Here is what she said (paraphrased because I am telling you from memory):

She said to my surprise. "It is far worse to be poor in America than in Somalia." She continued after I asked her why she felt this way. "In Somalia if you have no home, you go into the forest where indigenous people have lived for eons and they teach you how to live. In America all the indigenous people are not allowed in their forests anymore and they have forgotten how to live in them thanks to U.S. policies which took away their right to their land. If you try to live in the forests in America you would be arrested, nobody is allowed to live there in God's lands that should belong to everyone by God's hands. In Somalia if you have nothing to eat, you glean from the fields and find things to eat in the forests and then even in the city you can build a fire and cook your food, you can make a shelter from whatever materials you can find. There is nothing in America you can find on your own, you have to pay for everything, even if you have to go to the bathroom..."

Margaret continued on while amidst our waving our signs and calling for change, "I am marching because I see the suffering not only of my own people who have come here, but for all Americans who suffer in poverty. This is because in America taking food from a field would be "stealing" and if you tried to build a shelter or make a fire in the city, you would be arrested. Most godly people no matter their faith knows that the world belongs to God, not to certain people who say they "own" all of God's resources when they know they should share them. While they say they love God and Jesus so much, then they already know in their own hearts that they should not keep everything for themselves when they cannot even use all they have while others starve..."

Now I know about people like Darell Issa and how foolish he can be, not only from my own experiences with poverty, but from others who have come to America. He has no idea about being poor in America, all he knows is his mansions and making money off the backs of the poor for his own gain, to hell with anyone else. All he knows is that he can pay for the necessities in life, while the poor here have to pay for every single little thing they need ~ except perhaps the air we breathe, which is becoming more polluted every day by Issa's friends and for which the poor will pay for in the 17% taxes they pay more than any other class. They cannot go into the forest and make their way as those in Somalia could. They cannot live in the city, which is a desert and a wasteland for those who are poor. How "lucky is anyone to be poor and an American living in conditions like that? Darrell Issa is an idiot and ignorant!

Cat in Seattle
Board member of POWER: http://www.mamapower.org