Do Not Forget

your blessings, your privilege

I recently ordered a new pair of shoes. The shoes I’d been wearing had little arch support and I had been experiencing plantar fasciitis (that pulling sensation you get at the bottom of your foot). For this reason, my doctor recommended I get better shoes. This was pertinent, considering I have a trip coming up in the fall, and I wanted to be in fine form for all of the walking I knew I’d be doing.

I chose a pair of beautiful green and cream coloured chunky sneakers from New Balance, after researching several options. I got them at a great price too; 47% off (amazing, right?). Now I sit in excitement, waiting for them to be delivered to my front door. With a simple few clicks of a button, I will have brand new sneakers handed right to me. 

Have you ever stared at a picture of yourself for too long, causing the image to go from something you’re fairly satisfied with to something that you’d rather no one else saw? The image itself didn’t change, but you sat with it for long enough to ponder and to feel, and now, what looked lovely now seems…ugly. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, except it hasn’t been with photos, it’s been with life, and how something as simple as being able to order myself sneakers online is completely unimaginable to someone else, living a completely different life than mine. 

I am a black, latina woman, and so I can fairly say that my life has not been without its challenges. Racism, stereotyping, sexism, you know the gist. However, I still consider myself to be extraordinarily privileged. Incredibly, and deeply privileged. 

Foundationally, I have been born into a well-connected country. My citizenship alone grants me access to places, people and things that others, who may have been born somewhere else, do not have access to. Every morning, I wake up in a house, in a bed. When my feet touch the floor, they feel the softness of an area rug beneath them. I brush my teeth with clean, running water from my sink. I go down to the kitchen and there is food in my fridge. I have options to choose between; an omelet or a yogurt? The air outside is clean, the streets are quiet. Most times, I can step outside with no fear of imminent danger. 

I have the ability to listen to whatever song I want, whenever I want, wherever I am. I can text my friends something funny I saw online. I can walk, run and jump. I can go out or I can stay home. 

Tea or coffee? Jeans or trousers? Books or T.V.? Downtown or uptown? Write or sing? Pink nails or black nails? Chicken or fish? Debit or credit? Hair up or hair down? 

These are the frivolous questions I face daily.

When I bought those sneakers, I sat with my purchase. I thought about children out there in the world who walk around barefoot. Though the terrain is rough and they may cut their soles on rocks and glass, and the hardness of cement roads, they are preoccupied with other things. Where is their next meal coming from? Where are their parents/guardians? What will they do without them? Their other problems so greatly out way their aching feet, that they hardly notice it at all.

I think about people who have been displaced, who have lost their homes and have nowhere to go, not a single idea of where to turn. Every photograph, every memory, every family heirloom lost in rubble, their villages, towns, and cities, no longer recognizable. These people who have been portrayed to us by news outlets, in our cool, air-conditioned houses, as collateral damage, instead of the living, breathing human beings they are. 

And then I go online, and all I see are dollar signs. Everyone is talking about the latest trends, the best coffee shops in the city, the handbag of the season. People are fighting to get viral $40 lip glosses before they sell out. An hour-long video of some guy in his twenties going over his sneaker collection pops up in my suggestions, each pair of shoes costing over $150, while the closet in the background resembles Imelda Marcos’. Someone is trying to sell you on why you should be getting a professional manicure twice a month. Someone else is showing off their cool new water bottle that “doesn’t spill when you turn it over”. 

I know we’re in peak capitalism. I’ve heard the discussions. I happily stop and watch underconsumption videos when they pop up on my social media pages. But there is something so sinister about the dichotomy of seeing grainy footage of a bomb going off in a wartorn country, back-to-back with a Sephora haul. Red blush is in, while red blood is being spilt. We are being quietly lulled into complacency, we are being bribed to remain unaware, wrapped up in ourselves and our own lives, and our haves and have nots.

There are so many people in this world who have nothing. They have nothing. I find myself embarrassed when I am upset over trivial things. I complain about being too tired to cook when I get home from work, but there is a family somewhere with no food. I get annoyed at subway delays, when there is a woman out there walking twenty miles each day for water. How absurd is it that we often put so much of our energy into the stress of minor inconveniences, while many are simply grateful for a bout of rain after a drought? 

Currently, I am in my house, surrounded by family. No one is worried about being snatched off the street by our government and put in jail. No one is worried about being sent away to another country, never allowed to return to the one they’ve known all their lives. We are not refugees, looking for someone to take us in. We are privileged because we can simply be. Forget consumerism, our privilege takes the form of walk-in clinic visits and grocery shopping, nights out with friends, and doing taxes.  Our privilege is in the commute to work, in the tylenol we take for a headache. We do not live under constant threat, our lives are not at stake, and that in itself is a gift that so many have not been given.

Now, I would like to be very clear on this: I am not saying that those in the similar positions as me and many others I know do not struggle at all. I know that oftentimes, comparison to those in less fortunate positions is used to minimize what we experience. We are human, pain is simply part of our condition. No one is exempt, no matter where or who you are. We are allowed to express our aches and our distastes with our lives, but it’s important to remember just where we are and where we could have been instead. Everyone is entitled to their emotions. Feel your feelings, your sadness, your outrage, but do not forget those who go without shoes, homes, families, safety. Do not take for granted the sky above you, free from smoke and missiles, the ground below you, where grass and flowers grow.  Move through the world with the understanding that you have been blessed in more ways than you can count.