The Gospel of Bad News

The Gospel of Bad News

Disability studies finds its way into every Medical Anthropology curricula i’ve seen over the past 12 years, and rightfully so. In my experience, it seems that in our culture we disregard an examination of anything that too complex to be convenient until it “dysfunctions” and becomes inconvenient. If you’re not convinced of this, feel free to stop reading now and take a look at the following relationships:

• Healthcare Systems: COVID-19

• The Illusion of a Post-Racial America as Reflected in Educational Curricula : Critical Race Theory / Book Bans

• Equitable Access to Communications Systems : Quarantine

• Gender Equity (or respectability of any kind) : Pink Tax, Wage Gaps, Reproductive Healthcare Bans

I think you get the gist…we’re not only broken, we are broke. For many of us, it meant a re-visualization of our citizenship as a being cog in cash cow machine that will never pay an exacting wage for the cost of our consciousness, attention, morals, and its punishment on our bodies. Although some of us may not be able to directly calculate the wage robbery on our bodies, an examination of the moral practices we share and place upon our children will ultimately evidence the weight of that theft. In case you question that, take a moment to think of the ways we manage reporting symptoms as women (of any race) types of self care (for Black Americans) , performance pressure (children of 1st generation immigrants). But this isn’t a list of grievances, it’s a pause break to salvage what’s left after some of the “well- intending” damage is done.

In my experiences of the self-inflicted pain of this performance anxiety following a shift in physical ability, I’ve found that it may have been far more damaging than the pain and expense of having to manage an illness within a broken healthcare system. To strive for types of “normalcy” in a system where the expectations for most of us are anything but “normal,” can either be fatal, or life-saving. For me, recognizing my physical limitations and how much they have not measured up to what I have wanted them to have pushed me to strategically imagine and then create novel ways of getting things done. To be clear, I would’ve preferred being able to do things the way and at the time which everyone else did, but that lot in life was not mine, and wouldn’t have afforded me even half of the perspective which I enjoy and utilize today in a life which is richly satisfying.

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Back then, when all of these things were happening to my body I had a glimpse of how and why these things were happening. Some of the tragedy of the past two years I still do not understand, but I am just trusting God everyday when these ideas creep from the darker side of my thoughts. I learned a long time ago that sometimes , “people are just going to people,” which essentially means that some people are here to steal, kill, and destroy. Even if that killing is your love, your hope, your intimate desires, even if that stealing is your intellectual property , your sanity, or your peace, and even if that stealing is your access to what they covet but won’t develop the spiritual discipline to develop; because in the long (eternal ) game – hustle need not apply. It ain’t gon work. It aint ever gonna work; but here is some good news (to some) you can apply it. You will get some results, you will achieve and attain many things, and ground yourself and tether yourself, your consciousness, and eventually for some even your soul into this (un) realistic existence and be satisfied. Temporarily; And it will never be enough. Here’s why- its not the material things- its the toothsome satisfaction of consuming. The mechanism is as addictive as your strongest addiction which has ABSOLUTELY no substitute, or cure except for the desire and willingness to change your mind. The gift of changing how we see and think about things- especially our own value or “utility,” or where we are find our inspiration or meaning (sources of vitality) can shift to life affirming, life giving, and life framing, and externalized meaning those places which detract from our humanity, or differentness. So what’s the good news? The good news is that it never expires until we do, and unless it infringes upon another negatively, its all good because It is always up to you, every day every minute. Every breath is another chance.