Last week, I pondered the obscene spectacle of holding a mega-concert catering to the wealthy in the Southern California desert town of Indio where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. The truth is that events like this that underline the contrast between the heedless luxury of the affluent with the deprivation of the poor are not the exception to the rule, but rather, a basic fact of everyday life in our era of historic economic inequality. It’s just the way we live now.
And in sunny California, San Diego in particular, the poor are accustomed to watching the party from the outside. As a community college professor at City College, I am particularly attuned to the painful realities of economic and racial inequality because I see the costs of poverty on a daily basis in the classroom and in the lives of my students who frequently struggle to balance the hard economics of survival and academic success. Sometimes the choice is between books and groceries or rent; in other instances, it’s between childcare and study time. The list goes on and on. [Read more…]