Welfare-Blah, Blah, Blah

The bike riding bank robber

She told the story of a brother who, when he was a younger man decided with another young man, I believe she said his cousin, to rob a bank he was on a bicycle and his cousin, who was on foot, went inside the bank and he came out running and taking the bike and left him there to get caught and punished for a stupid mistake that caused him to be a 52 year old black man who has never had a job. Now that was interesting.

 Another time another facilitator told about a family member who stole from the retail shoe store she worked at and never brought her a pair of stolen shoes.

Perhaps those stories they told us are to show the desperate, risk taking, characteristic of mankind, but how was this related to finding a job?

Another day and no money. They should give the money first. I don’t see any harm in that. give the money to the people then track them, every move they make and if they are not legit cut off the money.  To have the money first would improve everyone’s self esteem. With money in the pocket they could take pride in themselves and buy a pair of shoes, or pay a water bill, or buy a new comb and hair grease, or notebook to take notes or a folder to keep the job search forms in without folding them up and stuffing them in their pocket or purse. Once I remember someone saying something bad about the forms being wrinkled and torn and messy looking. Well, money would help solve a lot of the little problems they talk about there.

They could even afford a nice light weight $20 suit to wear to an interview, or a simple pair of earrings and maybe even pantyhose, a pen, paper. How can you send some one into war without weapons? It has often been done to us repeatedly, over the years. Once the armed forces allowed black men in, they gave them nothing to fight with, they weren’t even given boots for walking to march, but us, we did it anyway, they were used as mules mostly, they weren’t given proper fighting tools and yet were accused of not being able to fight.

They were willing to risk their lives for this country they were doing it for various reasons of survival and with a pride to be included in the defense of the US of A and still the US of A treated them with utter disdain. Many more examples demonstrate the refusal to give us what we need to fight, and we have always deserved to have what we needed.  There is always something in the way of giving us a true feeling and belief that it, whatever it is belongs to us, that we deserve it.

Giving women the money first to a better way to support the well-being of a woman with child (ren), let her pay her bills, and feel like a member of the society in which she and her family live. Money is what makes the world go round, without it, their world literally stops.

8/1/2012

I was on time no one began session until 9:15am. We have not signed in today as of yet.

Topic: How to look for a job on the internet. We talked about things like time management we also took a test to determine how good we were at planning. After about twenty minutes the learning atmosphere turned into a lot of gripes and confusion and more heavy negativity, many, many inefficiencies about the welfare system and the job preparedness program.

 I did mention that my name was not on the sign in or attendance log and neither was my client ID number and I told the facilitator and she said she would add it and it was not done. It is now 11:37 and there is no planned activity until lunch @ 12:00.

Now we get personal and talk and talk and talk and I was asked why I wasn’t talking.

I just said that I was choosing to be a listener so the talk, talk, talk went on it had nothing to with job preparedness wishes were made to go to the computer lab and search for jobs and check email make phone calls etc. anything to stay focused on why we are here were refused, instead there was more talk about tattoos, taboos, roaches, do’s and don’ts that have to do with the group as mothers as women, black and in a semi-state of limbo. Asking questions we already know the answers to and all the superstitions about what to eat when pregnant…”My baby is eight months years old how do I find out what my baby is allergic to?”, “My momma told me you a woman, you can figure out what to do to get what you need!” mention of the JET program. So, I started listing things I love.