WWADWWAD Newsletter - March 13th, 2022 Edition
Arriving to Substack a day late and a dollar short
March 13th, 2022 - Anchorage, AK - Issue 9
This month’s newsletter will be less sharing than usual as this month I’m not quite up to it. I will say a word here about what I had anticipated going into some depth about but have been otherwise occupied by work and school.
The thing I want to discuss here and further in the future is the horrifyingly vast disparity between the experiences of the wealthy and indigent in this town and I know across this country as well. This is not a subject I can as of yet speak about without starting to take a somewhat bitter tone.
I grew up with much privilege but since have been independent of my parents since I was 18 and have come to know the often unspoken reality warp that is the difference between the way people with money live and the way people without money live. It’s kind of a strange thing to try to put to words.
I know many people with money to be stingier than those without much of it, as observed especially frequently with regard to wait staff. I think part of that can be attributed to people with money’s inexperience where the work of wait staff is concerned. This is could be interpreted as a tragic example of the limited way humans understand contrasting experience.
I want to raise that people who have opposite experiences (either having money or not) do not clearly understand how it is to be the opposite way. In this case, people with money do not know how it is to not have money, and people without money do not know how it is to have money (that is at the moment to moment experience of it, as even if your financial state was different in the past, by virtue of current experience you do not exactly know the experience of someone in an opposite financial state than you at any given moment, and the experience of it changes with time and the economy).
Both of these natural instances of experiential unknown result in inadequacy for those without money. Not only do they not know what it is to have money, those around them that do have money lack awareness of what it is to not, something which can be very painful to encounter in a fellow human as an indigent person.
This being, in my view, the case, we could stand to realize at all levels of financial stability that efforts to reduce harm for those that don’t have money should be structured through dynamics of mutual aid, more often than charity. There needs to be an element of shared experience or else giving to me seems willfully blind.
I’m curious to hear what others think about classism in this pandemic and conflict- wreaked time. Please feel free to comment below, and would love to include anyone’s art on the subject that they were willing to share in future issues.
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Cool picture of Spenard I found on https://www.anchoragememories.com/ :
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Upcoming Events
(both National/Worldwide
and Local Anchorage) :
National/Worldwide/Online:
Intersections of Abolition Work + Centering QTBIPOC Social Workers - Facebook live @ Red Linen Moon Wellness And Consulting, March 26th, 2022 at 5PM EST
Writing With Fire- Virtual Event- RSVP at http://bit.ly/3rTkONM - Alaska Public Media and UAA partner to bring you the Academy Award-nominated: Writing with Fire. In the midst of a patriarchal news landscape, the reporters with Khabar Lahariya – India’s only all-female news network – are taking it upon themselves to redefine power.
Local, AKST Time:
PFD Application Deadline: March 31st, 2022
It’s Not Easy Being Green - Williwaw Social, Pub-inar event, a “conversation about opportunities, barriers, and Alaska’s role in a clean energy future - March 17th, 2022 2:00-4:00PM - Free admission, food & bev
St. Patrick's Day Party w/ SSSS - Palmer Train Depot , March 17th, 2022 7:00PM-11:00PM, $30 tickets at www.eventbrite.com/e/st-patricks-day-party-w-ssss-the-palmer-train-depot-tickets-262037941537
Out North's Mental Health Mosaics Art Show: Creative Reflections On Mental Health- Akela Space 320 W 6th Avenue, 132F - March 19th, 2022 1:00-4:00PM, Masks requested, Smash tiles, check out art, and help prompt community conversations about mental health. Join us for a free, interactive, drop-in style event. Made possible by Out North, Alaska Public Media, Alaska Mental Health Trust, Mental Health Mosaics, and Akela Space
Food Preservation Basics - Online Event- March 22, 2022 12:00PM, Why food is preserved, methods of preservation, and causes of food spoilage will be discussed. General tips will also be discussed. Matanuska Experiment Farm & Extension Center and Mat-Su Cooperative Extension Service. Register in advance for this meeting: https://alaska.zoom.us/j/81764186931
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