Some Women I Admire--Biking and Story Telling

Carolyn Norr and Bridget Barsotti are two ambitious artists and educators that put their beliefs where their bodies are. Mid-September, they armed themselves with art supplies, cameras and the dedication to listen to people, and left Ann Arbor, MI on their bikes, pulling all their gear on trailers behind them.

Carolyn and Bridget are the visionaries of UnderCurrent Events, a project to collect people's personal stories regarding terms heard often in mainstream media, words like heroism, terror, and war. Then, using street theatre and visual art as the vehicle, they share those stories with a wider audience.

“We seek people’s personal stories that relate to topics in today’s news,” says Carolyn, who currently teaches art in the Oakland Public schools and sees her project as a popular education method. “When we watch the news, we are presented with stories and images of what is going on in the world today. But what is going on with each of us as individuals? We need an avenue to express our memories, fears, hopes, and visions for the present and future. UnderCurrent Events provides people with that opportunity. We welcome everyone’s story and honor everyone’s power in telling their own experience.”

Each day of their bike tour, Carolyn and Bridget wake up and start talking to people. On the outside, it’s a very simple concept. But they don’t just listen—they act as a net, by collecting stories and re-presenting them through a series of street performances and within their mobile-gallery. As they travel from town to town, their collection grows.

“In sharing our stories and hearing other people’s, we can see that we are not alone,” Carolyn says.

Before they embarked on their journey, Bridget and Carolyn prepared performances on themes like “Courage and Heroism,” “Walls and Borders,” “Loss,” and “Our People—Family, Community and Nation.” Performance pieces and poems were designed to leave space for later adding the voices and words of people that Carolyn and Bridget would come across on their ride.

“Each of these pieces includes a blend of our own performances (skits, spoken word poetry, movement and music) integrated with the reading of people’s responses to these themes. Some of the responses are pre-collected written responses and some are collected from the crowd, on the scene,” says Carolyn. “Something we've really worked on is allowing real people's voices to come thru earnestly … both the stories we read and the spoken word pieces we perform.”

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “courage”? When was a time when someone faced a challenge? When was a time you encountered a barrier you wanted to overcome and how did you do it? What was a time you felt free? When do you set someone else free? These are the questions that prompt people to launch into their own stories. In the telling, common goals emerge.

“As this trip goes on I see through-lines between people,” says Bridget.

Bridget recounts a story of going into a nail-manicure shop in Ohio. There, she met a woman from Vietnam who had been in the States for almost a year. Bridget was able to explain the fundamentals of the project by asking the woman about a time that she was faced with a problem, and what she did to overcome it. The woman spoke about how customers were rude and treated her badly because she couldn’t speak English. “I pray to God that I will become better at doing nails,” the woman said. Bridget answered, “but those people are wrong for treating you that way.”

“She was all smiles,” Bridget remembers. “She couldn’t believe I was taking her side.” Bridget finds that people are excited to have their stories validated. “Every time we’re talking to someone, especially who has a perspective different from the media, they are appreciative that they’re being heard at all.”

A week into the trip and Carolyn and Bridget were just starting to get into a rhythm, finding that they had to amend some of their original ideas. One of the major adjustments is that they can’t perform street theatre to the extent that they had wanted because people are simply not out on the streets. They find that in many small towns, the place to congregate is church, and it is difficult to roll into town and expect to perform in places of worship.

In some towns, performance actually alienates them from the community.

“[Street theatre] is kind of a San Francisco thing,” Carolyn says, as she explains that some people unfamiliar with street performance treated her as though she were alien to them when she was onstage. The solution is to write down people’s stories—along with their pictures—on 4x6 cards. These cards have become part of a mobile gallery that travels with them and illustrate a myriad of voices.

Carolyn finds that, while performance art isn’t always a point of connection, “people are really excited about the interviews and want to see something happen with them … and people really are interested in other people’s stories.” Thus, the visual art is an effective way of sharing.

For the most part, those interested and receptive to street theatre already have some access to alternative media. After a show in front of a co-op at Oberlin College, people were moved to tears.

In order to bridge the gap between these students and the local community, Bridge and Carolyn decided to interview people from town and bring the stories back to campus. Says Bridget, “We’re crossing over.”

Biking 25-50 miles a day, in addition to conducting interviews, recording stories on cards, and performing, Carolyn and Bridget have their hands full. Fortunately, they’ve found that the small towns along their way are more than generous as they find places to stay and set up their project.

“People here seems to know each other, have a cohesiveness, so that as soon as two girls ride in with huge bob trailers asking about a place to stay, things spring into effect, calls are made, numbers are passed on, and instantly we have three options of places to stay and are eating salad in a sprawling homey-home,” says Carolyn.

The idea for UnderCurrent Events emerged within a small group of activists in the Bay Area interested in popular education. Sami Kitmitto, an early collaborator who helped brainstorm ideas for the trip, says, “The idea for me started last November after the elections. It seemed we were doing a bad job connecting with the rest of America and organizing around the Bay Area seemed a bit redundant to me.”

Like Carolyn, Sami was interested in questions of how to put popular education into practice. “I was teaching at City College and really wanted to mesh my ideas around pedagogy and activism ... How to engage people and teach them without preaching to them. Deep down we all hold similar values ... but why do we come to such different conclusions? I had this idea to disseminate information and get people to absorb the information critically with this fundamental belief that upon reflection people would want to join on into a movement ... or I'd want to join theirs.”

Carolyn was also teaching in the Bay Area: “For the last few years I've been involved in “youth development,” which seems like a pretty common model of popular education that’s primarily done with urban U.S. youth, but what about the “mainstream”? I think we're both trying to understand where those mythologized “red state” folks are coming from, and trying to develop a model of how to communicate without just projecting statements loudly into brick walls.”

“I was interested in finding out what is the voice of “Middle America,” says Bridget, who was working as a performance artist and holds a degree in Popular Theatre. “Growing up in the Bay Area I didn’t know what that was … There is news and then there’s what’s really going on … People don’t believe their own voice matters because they’re usually just told by the media what matters.”

For Carolyn, the unofficial goal of the project is to “look at each person as having a unique and valid experience … We hope to create a mini-reality where honesty and listening are not as feared as they are in mainstream news.”

“This is our trip,” Carolyn writes to a large group of supporters through email, “heavy, wet air and green trees sinking under the weight of their leaves, long roads stretching flat and potentially unpaved, American flags and Christian radio, truckers falling out of their cabs to point and yell to us, people taking care of us, giving us cantaloupe and tomatoes from the garden, bike pumps, life stories, 20 dollar bills and directions to the next location. People who are clearly suffering the ravages of racism, classism, sexism, empire, and environmental destruction … This is our trip too: traveling by the shoulder where we are showered with muddy water every time a semi passes, where we track the wildlife by road kill, where we count signs for ‘Midwest Agricultural Genetics’ in the cornfields and observe a sign that says, ‘No More Subdivisions, End the Madness.’ Where class divides—social and economic—hit as hard as the wind off a semi.”

She writes of an old couple who were pushed into a new home by developers and forced to collect water in empty two-liter soda bottles from their old farm after their well dried up. Some people in town blame the dryness of the county’s wells on mineral extraction, others blame it on Cabella's, a giant sporting goods store and tourist destination that recently installed an artificial lake. According to the couple, the town has mixed feelings about Cabella's because they made empty promises, like a shuttle service to downtown, and, as part of their contract, had the power to ban any grocery stores from opening.

“Most everyone has been friendly and wanting to talk,” says Carolyn, “but I feel here … the lingering sensation we are bearing this, not complaining, so don't complain either. I think I see in people's eyes the recognition of inequality: How are you biking across country when we are just trying to get by? [It’s] not only a monetary thing, it’s a sort of privilege of opportunities, availability of options and possibilities.”

The trip has provided both Carolyn and Bridget time to think about what it means to be an artist and how to use art to “break down walls and hierarchies rather than strengthen them, how to create something that does more than assert our own voices in a way that silences others, how to create openings, make art be something without distinct audiences and artists ... because it’s so easy for “art” to be a luxury, a symbol or accessory of the leisure class.” Says Carolyn, “I feel good about being on the ground, grappling with that question directly and intensively.”

When they return to the Bay Area, Carolyn and Bridget hope to revamp their website (http://www.undercurrentevents.org) with the pictures and stories they’ve collected. They’ll continue to use the stories in performance.

Tara DePorte's Brazil journal 2005, excerpt

June 2, 2005

Day 1 in brazil: Ponta Negra, Patrick’s

I almost feel like I have to lie to myself because this is a printed page, which might be indicative of the fact that I want to write this down on something less permanent….But my heart feels broken. I think it was broken long ago, but I didn’t want to give into it and I’m suddenly truly faced with “total defeat”, if I want to put it in such competitive terms. Which it’s not…it’s the fact that I want someone to truly love me and to love them back so much and I keep wanting to hide that feeling from myself—that vulnerability—the fact that once I love, or begin to love, I don’t know how to let go. I don’t know how to give up on that dream. Or any of my dreams. And that is one that just doesn’t fit no matter how I try to mold it and with whom. I am sitting on a bed, in such a warm house, with such loving people, where in the room next to me—two people in love with each other are making love to each other—or maybe they’re just lying there—happy. Comfortable in each other’s arms. Somewhere far from any puzzle that include me. I’m the outsider—and they’re beautiful together. And I don’t know what it is I want—other than to have that feeling. To be the recipient—and no matter how I try to pretend it’s not, that hope was somehow still alive inside of me inspite of all of the “evidence” and the signs---I couldn’t give up the hope. And I still have trouble---with that “someday” prophecy. And it just feels, looks and is pathetic, Tara. I feel like a disgustingly desperate, clingy, lying person—who is in a loving house under false pretenses and I just want to run, to keep running—to be away from everything I know—to martyr myself as I have done in the past---to enjoy the loneliness, to wallow in my own sadness and stories, to be alone. The funny thing is that it all sounds so negative, so pointless---but yet I know I grow out of these “types of experiences”. That I put myself in them and run and can’t stay still and can’t choose and don’t desire until I’ve cut off of the circulation of the hope external to my sadly optimistic mind. And it’s raining—pouring. And I’d like to say I hate that, but I don’t. I’d like to say (as I did a few minutes ago ) that everything is horrible. That it’s all flooded in on me in the way I knew deep down it would---that my stupid fucking fairytale wasn’t about to come true. That dragging sensation—that self-assuredness is creeping in on me—that I am going to be consigned to solitude. Developed and fully executed by none other than myself. Or just because there’s no one that I would or could meet that would really match me—and I think I need to do a lot of thinking about that one. What the hell is inside of me that I either am incapable of accepting? Am completely unmatchable? Or just plain suck? And I see myself, feel myself, hear myself bringing the “others” in---to increase a sense of misery, to excuse myself for wallowing for crying, for falling to pieces, for running home tomorrow and just lying in my safe Brooklyn bed. God I would love that right now. And what have I done? Have I lied to myself and developed this ruse to work in this region in the hopes that I would woo Patrick? Fuck. I want to say “yes” with such an affinity as to make myself even more disgusted and self-deprecating right now. I want to say “yes” so I can also say that I’ve fucked up everything in my life, that I’ve lied so fucking easily to myself---the self-proclaimed truthsayer that I am—with all of the bullshit that I spew from my mouth on a daily basis. I can feel the robotic kicking in---when the eyes of other with glaze over and they’ll either wish they had never asked, or they’ll be drawn like flies to the trap and then smooshed….trampled over like I appear to do. I feel like the one that came to dinner uninvited. In fact---I am. No wonder that everyone in this house probably either feels pity for me or that I’m a pushy, stupid fool. I don’t know if I can handle this. I might have to run away—or bow out “gracefully” in the eyes of others. It fucking hurts. I feel like such a stupid prick. Why am I here? Why am I sleeping in Patrick’s old room? I feel like it’s so obvious, that I’m wearing everything I’ve ever thought of on my sleeve. Again—the pity. I think I’m going to have to go---I don’t know if I can swallow this and not show my true feelings…And that, I definitely can’t do. I guess I’m trapped here for at least a few days. And I really don’t want to think of it in that way---I don’t want to feel trapped in a place I felt so happy before. I don’t want to be reliving memories and ideas of being giddy. I don’t want any of this. And I should have just stayed away. A long time ago. I don’t know what’s wrong with me---I don’t know what I’m feeling other than overwhelmed yet I don’t want to be overwhelmed atall. There are so many things I don’t want to be and yet I always seem to relapse into being those exact things. I am a stranger here. There’s no doubt about it. I don’t fit—I don’t speak the language, I’m not the one being loved, I’m not the one loving—I’m from many lands away. And yet they’re so kind and open to me—but I’m not. I don’t feel like I am—I have been pushed into, no, I have pushed myself into a role that I am playing right now. And I want to hide. I want to stay in this room until everyone is gone, then sneak out, then sneak in, then be unnoticed and just wake up in my bed. In MY life. Not in theirs. I want MY LIFE back. The one that no one else can take from me. The one that I can control. And that one doesn’t exist and it never has. And it hurts. How many times do I have to say that it hurts? It hurts! It fucking hurts! I want to scream or sob or do nothing all at the same time. I want to relapse, to rewind, to restrict, to react to choose the right thing to do. And I can’t. I want to let go, to accept, to love, but I don’t think I’m strong enough. And I think a lot of me doesn’t want to do that as well. I could feel myself start to shift on the plane. To start to think of Patrick. To get excited, to have Jon fade…because he should fade. I need to listen to my instincts and not get sick, not get hurt. Know what’s real and so much that’s not. That I can convince myself of anything and then tell the story to my friend’s in a way so that they will totally agree with me and back me up with it. I wanted to say, yeah, my boyfriend was upset too. I had to at least say “yeah the guy I’m seeing”….why do I have to be so childish? Why is it an eye for an eye? Why am I here? I’m scared that I’m going to find myself in two months---and more---of misery. Of total isolation—just like I wanted---of timidness, of unproductiveness, of fucking pouring rain. Nothing. Nothing that I was “planning for”. All of which I truly new was on the way for me. What the hell is wrong with me? And John is real in some ways. So unreal that he becomes blatantly real. And I don’t want to “be with him” and I want to convince my ego that he really wants to “be” with me---but we all know that that’s bullshit. Maybe he likes me. Maybe he has some genuine admiration….maybe. But that’s it. I shouldn’t fool myself again. I should read that fucking book “Maybe he’s just not that into you”. Yes, that would sum up and make all of my little complicated fantasies so easy: that is the summary. The title page. And it makes me want to vomit. To go numb. To hurt. To go flirt and find another one to add to the page of “those not that into you”. And to fuck up another thing. I hear voices out in the hall and the last thing I want to do is go out there and face anyone. I don’t want to say one word in Portuguese and I don’t want to see them smile at me, or say a nice thing to me, or pity me, or not pity me because they don’t know the TRUTH. That I’m writing furiously in here and helpless. Helpless in my own fucking skin. And I’m the one to blame for the stupid fairytales. I should ban those thoughts….fairytales…forever from my life.

Day 2: Still….

I get such a sick pleasure from knowing that instead of happy cuddling all of last night, Patrick and his girlfriend were breaking up…It’s another excuse to keep my mind alive in stupidity. And I shouldn’t do it. I certainly wouldn’t act on it, but it made me feel so damn good. It almost doesn’t matter that they got back together, but still. Really, I had a great day with Wilma and Guillermhe. And know I am incredibly tired. There will be more tomorrow. Hanging out with “them”….the unmentionable….and more.

Day 3: June 4, 2005

Well, I am stuck in many ways. I do enjoy Patrick and HIS Girlfriend, but I have my limits. I don’t want to hang out with the two of them and it sucks that that’s how it is. I understand her wanting to be there…but it would seem that Patrick would at least offer to have some time just the two of us.. I guess he did the other night. It’s exhausting. To be the third person, to be the one who the other two would probably prefer not be there…and to know it. And to be in such an awkward position. But I also see myself finding---and probably looking---for more bad things in Patrick. If nothing else good comes out of this, I hope that my infatuation is truly able to leave for good. He’s definitely getting fat, which I don’t like atall. He’s interesting, at times, to talk with…but is so hard to speak with at the same time---and I don’t think it’s just a language thing either. I feel slightly bored around him. That I’m the one providing the energy,….And again get that doom of thinking that that will always be the case. And then I wonder how much of it is trying to convince myself that it’s all okay…that this is what I really want and I didn’t like him anyways. A big nanananana to myself? A big, who gives a fuck? And then I can feel myself not liking to be staying at another persons house…No matter how wonderful it is here. I don’t like the feeling of dependency (fears of intimacy too? I’m not sure that I think I have these..but I might). I don’t like not having a key. To have to worry about doing the right thing…although it’s not hard to do. And to feel like others are wanting or feel the need to entertain me. I guess I don’t have a full comfort, and never did, around Patrick. It’s not easy around him and I suppose never has been. Hindsite pretty much sucks and is a complete phallacy in that it becomes whatever you want it to become---good or bad, no matter. And I can see myself starting to want to focus on my studies…to look into matters, to explore on my own…to get away from others. At the same time I can feel myself rushing. Although I don’t perceive that Patrick really wants me around. Which, again, is not the most wonderful of feelings. He hasn’t said anything as such, but as before, there is not wanting me to stay…and I did invite myself AGAIN. I should remind myself of that. Although I guess it was more of a question this time as to where I should fly into. I don’t know…..Again, I find myself tired. I found myself tonight dreading the idea of a big rave with the two of them…and with all of their friends. It would be nice if Patrick acknowledged that it might not be the most amazing of situations for me. But I don’t think he will. His priorities are elsewhere. What makes me the saddest, as I’ve said before, is the death of a dream. And the death of love of some sort…if there ever was any. He is not the person that I created in my head. Some day I will totally come to terms with that one. Maybe not today….Also, he’s not what I need. No matter how I can try and convince myself of otherwise. There are many, many things that are bad and were bad. Why do I forget that? I seem to hold on to the bad for a short amount of time and then continue with the good…which I guess is a positive trait??? It sure doesn’t feel like one right now, however. I’m wishing again that they are fighting in the other room. That they will break up and he will come begging me and then I will have decided I’m just not really that into him….that’s my honest dream right now. And I’m not happy with that. With those feelings, with that undertone in my every move, even if my other sentiments are genuine. I don’t like it….And I’m nervous. I’m scared that I wont feel good in Fortaleza. I don’t know what to expect—from the place, from myself. From anything. I want to live in a safe apartment, near an artists area—young and with places to hang out in the evening that I don’t have to worry about going far from my house. That I can paint and draw in my apartment. Have a view. Be near the beach….learn portugues, surf. Go out into the Sertao a bit with renzo, but maybe even stay put for a bit this time. To work and to write. Have internet at my house and learn about all of the local libraries and universities. Make some money. Be shy or not be shy as I will. Be alone some. Not have a fucking exboyfriend and his girlfriend in the next room. Especially one with which I have questionable feelings……Well, all that said. I did enjoy today. I enjoyed hanging out on the beach with the two of them. I enjoyed talking with Moara…even though I don’t like her name (what a bitch I can be). I enjoyed playing basketball with Patrick and the other guys (although not one of them was even remotely cute). I enjoyed saying no to going out and retiring to my room. At telling Patrick that it made me tired to be the third person the whole night. All of this….all of this….

June 11, 2005

Things have changed. The rain, again, comes down outside as the palm leaves sway and the loud speakerphones announce the days produce, “ovos, mangas, bananas!” I was planning on leaving on Friday---yesterday—that I couldn’t take anymore of my mixed feelings, but I’ve felt differently the past few days. Maybe it’s the beautiful joy coming from Wilma and Guilherme—the fun, the beautiful weather, the time on my own, the good book on the beach? The rainy season doesn’t end in May like all of the IRI literature says---it’s definitely until July---or so they say. But the rains here are different. The clouds roll over the dunes of Ponta Negra and you can feel the constant heaviness in the air. Everything is damp and heavy. The air moistens your lungs…the streets are inundated with water, but everyone is still driving on—on motorcycles through 3 feet of standing water, just lift your legs. And there’s so much rain…it’s hard to imagine that most of the other months of the year will be dry—or so they say. Although the papers say the rainy season is January to May, May and June are said to be the time for rain—particulalry June, which is evident now. But everyone tells me it’s different in the Sertão—like the man who rides the beach on his horse, dressed in the revolutionary garbs of those who freed the north—the Sertão represents other. Just as in true throughout the world—the city and the country are different countries, different people, different foods—“carne de sol” and “quejo de Sertão”—and although it is raining here, the word is that only the coast is so fortunate. Just a few hundred kilometers from here, it supposedly might not be raining and they will only get a small percentage of the rain that is here.

June 12, 2005

It’s hard to think about which “decisions” are best. Most of me says that my decision to stay in Natal and find an apartment here is good---I can explain it and it has very good “sounds” to it—It’s safe and comfortable here, I can find a place cheaply, I like it here, I know people here, I have contacts at the Secretariat and could possibly work with them on some of their participatory projects,..I can play basketball twice a week, know where the capoeira is, know where everything is….but yet I have the same old knot in my stomach right now as I think of Patrick and Moara. It’s not a healthy thing and that I know. I gently told Patrick that I didn’t want to hang out with them…and I hope that being on my own will avoid me feeling this way…but it’s still hard. It’s like choosing between the lesser of two evils, not evils, but hard choices nonetheless. I need to learn how to relax my stomach and to talk more with Patrick—I guess. Part of me just wants to try and forget, but part of me can’t. It’s so confusing in many ways. And it goes in waves. I wonder if he feels anything for me other than friendship? I wonder if he really would/could when he is still with Moara? I grimace at my subversive hopes that I will ruin their relationship, that he will dump her for me….similar to what I think happened with me. I wonder…if I had stayed longer? How does life change with small decisions, with small actions, small words. We are so delicately imbalanced….so consistently on the apex of a mountain..sometimes with paths that are treacherous, sometimes soft slopes.

June 23 2005

I just went out with the most ridiculous guy…I can’t stop laughing in that I don’t know if I was suffering from heatstroke or something when I actually thought he was cute yesterday…I must have been delirious…He’s tiny as hell, had his hair combed to the side, was chomping on his gum the whole time, didn’t offer to pay for anything (including his own drink!!!) He slouches…I was laughing because I am stoned but also at how ridiculous he is and we looked together….Wow. What an experience. I will definitely say that Dennis went up to the top of the charts with that one!

Well this is just too much thinking for one stoned gato.

June 25, 2005
Okay, now I feel like a masochistic bitcch..Or really happy, which ever you want to take seriously. I just had the perfcect night. I made a fucking amazing dinner for Wilma, guilermhe and Patrick,…we went out dancing and playing pool….and we danced a lot…it was really fun…adnd I danced a lot with Patrick, and it scares me how much this makes me feel good…Like a repayment, like I’m getting control…part of me fears that I a in it for the game, but really I feel genuine all of the way, which I think makes me feel that much better. I am happy being friends, truly happy with it…and then this happens and It makes me feel that much better. It’s a bit weird and conflicted, I know, but somehow, right now, it’s conforting….Ahhhh…my weird head..I can’t figure out what is left and right here---maybe because I don’t know the words in Portuguese, but it may be because I’m retarded right now…yes, that’s probably it. This is going to be a journal of complete incompetence, which I will NOT include in my fabulous thesis that I’m not working on at all…hmmms, maybe I should be drunk and high when I write my opinions…what on earth? Uhh…I’m dealing with a really mixed bag with these guys….

We’ll see, as I always right in my “prophesizing statements”.

Katrina

On some simplistic level, I don’t entirely understand why it is that when extremely rich, mainly white, people (and some, very few, colored people) have such a large percentage of the nation’s wealth, it is called affluence. And it has a positive connotation. And when the poorest of the poor in America begin to take shoes from stores, sell drugs to bring food home, strip in clubs to have the same level of affluence, obtain clothes without paying for them from a store; it is called looting, drug-dealing, prostitution and stealing. And it has a negative connotation. I find it fascinating how many, mostly black, people in America are condemned and put into jail for dealing and using drugs, and in the same breath, how many, mostly white, people in Hollywood are congratulated on Entertainment Tonight for checking into a drug rehabilitation center to face their “addiction.” What I’m talking about is, on a larger scale, about the often false dichotomy of right and wrong in the United States and the roles that history, culture and sociology play in the definitions of each. But it is also about the role each of us plays as individuals and citizens, and the individual choices we make about how we will use any privilege or marketable skill afforded to us. And on a personal level, what individual definition we create for ourselves as to the meaning of “stealing” vs. “entitlement” vs. “affluence.”

We all have heard the “statistics.” They go something like 95% of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of its most affluent citizens. But what exactly does this mean to those of us less versed in economic speak? Is it going too far for me to suggest that at some extreme point between rich and poor, this too can be construed as “stealing" from the people of the United States, in no different of a way than a bunch of poor people in Louisiana looting from a store because they want some of the merchandise inside? How does one come to “deserve” the wealth they have anyway? Capitalism is one thing, this new level of disparity we seem to have reached between rich and poor is another.

Or has it always been this way?

I have a friend who is a conservative Republican whom I like very much and learn a lot from. He often says (or the equivalent of) that we all get what we deserve in the world. Obviously, though, he cannot believe this without exception. I cannot imagine he really thinks a 3 year old little boy “deserves” to be beaten by his father or that a homeless woman “deserves” to be raped while sleeping on the streets. I think what he IS saying, however, is that there is an overall framework in the world that governs who attains a certain affluence and privilege and class and who does not, and to disrupt that framework is both foolhardy and impossible. A homeless person is homeless because they have created a life for themselves that has led to that point. Can I respect this opinion? Sure. Do I agree with it? No. Mainly because the equivalent is to say that so and so person deserves to suffer, and that, I believe, maybe controversially so, no one deserves.

So to try on for a minute the idea that instead of deserving anything, that our situation in life is simply a unique permutation of variables: certain neurons connecting during development in some certain way because of a certain sperm reaching a certain egg in a certain human being who lives a certain life. If we accept the idea that even willpower is a function of the brain no different than skin color is a function of melanin, than perhaps instead of deserving we could imagine that we don't have 100% control over who becomes privileged, who has wealth, good supermarkets, healthy vegetables, safe places to exercise, money to view other cultures of the world; if we do actually recognize that perhaps it is something more than “deserving” so, or “entitlement,” than, I wonder in a tangential way perhaps……don’t we at some point of disparity have a moral obligation to turn around and “give” some of that unique permutation and privilege back to others? Could it even be construed as “stealing” not to? That is, can it be construed as stealing IF my thought process towards the notion that our lives our made up of a complex permutation of variables that have no relationship to control, is correct?

And to follow along these lines of “moral obligations” to give back—I’m not just talking about donating money or volunteering once a week at the local homeless shelter. That is awesome to do and worthwhile in its own right, but it’s not really what I’m getting at. I’m referring more to questioning oneself and one’s own motives, privileges and gifts and about sacrificing some of the comforts we feel we inherently “deserve” as a result of them. I’m talking about having a moral conscience so strong that you DON’T join the throngs of rich, white, upper-class Americans. I’m not talking about President Bush spending a day touring the state of Louisiana and hugging those who have lost homes and who are suffering. I’m talking about President Bush stepping off the Air Force helicopter and setting up a tent outside the Louisiana Superdome and camping out alongside the horror. At least, as metaphor. And it’s not just President Bush who should take the guilt of this on his shoulders. It’s all of us. On a more personal level to me, I’m beginning to think that I really have no choice but to use my medical education to take care of the people who can take care of themselves the least. Or anyway, that is the direction in which I am beginning to feel I have absolutely no choice but to go. Because otherwise, I wonder selfishly, how exactly could I possibly live with myself? It would be, I think, as if to live with the guilt of stealing from others, every day of my life.

This all has been building in my mind for far longer than just since Hurricane Katrina, though I admit it’s been heightened since seeing those images on television. It has been on my mind especially now because I am watching my fellow medical school classmates apply to residency programs this summer and fall of 2005. And I have watched as, time and time again, friends and acquaintances have changed their career plans from pediatrics to dermatology. From internal medicine to otolaryngology. From general surgery to plastic surgery. From general surgery to anesthesia. From adolescent medicine to dermatology. And to be honest, I find myself both sad and angry. I am tired of hearing this news when I run into a classmate at the supermarket and I force a smile and say “wonderful!” Because to argue with them in the middle of a crowded supermarket, seems futile (though perhaps not?) And also because my first response to that anger and sadness is to question it. Why, exactly, should I be angry? Do I not think these fields are important and worthwhile? Of course not. Is it because I wish that I could allow myself to go into these fields? It would mean a life free of at least some of the “worries” I fear I may have with some of the less-paying specialties. My creature comforts would, more likely than not, be guaranteed for life. And no one could argue that dermatology isn’t a needed field. It is a field full of serving and giving, as are ophthalmology, otolaryngology, plastic surgery and anesthesia. Both domestically and internationally, ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists and plastic surgeons are just a few of the people who can work absolute miracles, allow blind children sight, remove cataracts from the infirm, repair cleft palates and reconstruct bodies disfigured in accidents or fires. And in fact, each are extremely needed on an even more American and middle class level: I worshipped my dermatologist when I was young because he changed the course of my middle school, acne-strewn, years. Not to mention my ophthalmologist, who gave me normal sight by allowing me to start using contacts in the 8th grade which, I remain convinced, played some role in allowing me to escape middle school relatively popular and relatively unscathed. And though I haven’t had the misfortune to yet need surgery, I suspect at some point in my life I will and I will be extremely grateful to have a talented and knowledgeable anesthesiologist keeping me alive. So one cannot just say that any of these specialties are not “important” to all of us, rich or poor or anything in between.

So then, what is my point? (I should say here that I probably don’t have one). I suppose it is more inflammatory. Because in the same breath; isn’t it more than simple economics that these most competitive residencies just so happen to be the highest paying? No, it's basic economics, Danielle, I am told by my PhD economist Father. Is that really it, I question further? Isn’t that one of the criticisms of its validity, that sociology is not taken enough into account in the devising of economic theory? Taking a larger step back, is there something more to why dermatology is a higher paying field than say, family medicine (other than simple cost and demand)? Why anesthesia more than general surgery? Why? Is there some inherent part of dermatology that makes it rewarding of a larger paycheck? Or could I venture to suggest that it may be, in some small part, because the practice of dermatology often serves some of the most affluent, and whitest, of our citizens? And could I venture to suggest that pediatrics and internal medicine is lower paying because, in part, it is one of the more accessible routes to the poorest, and least influential, people in the country and world? Or because pediatrics is one of the most accessible route for women in medicine to have both a family and a career? Because it leads to an already paved role towards community advocacy and service? Pediatrics, general surgery, family medicine and internal medicine can, at their best, serve some of the people who are left behind in our society, and whom we see reflected back at us by television cameras trained on the Louisiana Superdome. And who are, we cannot avoid seeing, overwhelmingly colored.

Returning to the many arguments one could raise about why different paychecks abound in different specialties: perhaps one could argue that it is because the skills required in dermatology are more specific and require more training. But if so, then wouldn’t one have to go to school for longer for them? How long is a dermatology residency? A cardiology residency? Aren’t they more or less the same length? So that can’t quite be it. Does dermatology have more billable procedures? What is it? Is it because at least some of the dermatologic practice serves procedures that aren’t “needed” to survive, but rather, are “needed” for specific persons to advance within very specific segments of our society? Wrinkles on a poor 40 year old person’s face who is working two jobs and bringing home Grade DDD beef to feed their children, somehow seems of less importance than it might be to a person for whom a wrinkle could in some ways constitute a weakening, a failing, a sense of regular-ness. And so, who obtains highly billable Botox treatments in dermatology? Is it the poor people in the Louisiana Superdome, who couldn’t pay for it even if they had time to obtain it? No, of course not. So then is it so hard to believe that dermatology pays more, because at least in tiny part, it overwhelmingly serves some of the richest, and most influential, percentiles of our citizenry?

While I'm at it, I might as well mention the discrepancy between the ethics of earning vs. stealing and the ethics of corporate America. The state of California just passed two bills, SB12 and SB965, which, among other things, prohibit the sale of soda beverages on California school campuses during school hours (effective July 2007). This comes in the wake of data showing that, contrary to popular belief, obesity and diabetes rates CONTINUE to rise among children nationwide, and California especially, despite all of the hullaballoo the issue has gotten in the last 2 years. In opposition to it was intense state lobbying which, until I learned about it, I didn't quite believe could be possible (I am apparently naive, I realize). How could someone want rates of adult-onset diabetes and obesity to continue to rise amongst US children? But there it was, the Grocery Manufacturer's of America, with US sales topping $460 billion a year, claiming that these new bills will do nothing to help children to choose healthier foods and paying boatloads of money to try to convince the governor that this indeed is so. Agreed, these bills aren't 100% solutions. But to claim (when soda consumption in children is shown to be one of the most highly correlated risk factors for pediatric obesity) that these measures do nothing.....is ethically arrogant and ethically wrong. So at what point I wonder are companies, and the humans behind those companies, responsible for the health effects of their products on consumers (a whole other topic, I realize)? Can it ever be construed that a company is, at least in efforts like those described above, "stealing" away health from US (not to mention international) children? And of course, as seems to be the theme here, stealing it at a disproportionate rate between white and colored children.

And so, on a larger scale and in a more evened breath, I wonder about our collective conscience, as UCSF medical students, and on a broader scale, as privileged young people in America. Do my friends whose families were born in China, who immigrated to the US with nothing, and who built their lives up from scratch here, not now "deserve" to “make it" and choose freely their professions? Of course I cannot say this. But if one is to argue this I cannot help but reflect back my earlier thoughts, which is to say in the same breath that, if so, than it should be equal to say that poor people who have been born into poverty, who haven’t finished middle school, much less a high school education, also deserve in turn to be living on the worlds fattiest foods, in the grimiest of neighborhoods, neighboring the nastiest of environmental hazards and faltering along without health insurance. For if we all get only what we deserve, than this is the only conclusion we can make. These people, who are incidentally mostly colored, must deserve this, in the same way that I must deserve what I have worked so hard for. And if one accepts this statement, than I suppose, a collective conscience more than what is present, is un-needed; and reacting to my essay is rather pointless. But if one finds any discomfort at all in this statement, has any conscious inkling at all that perhaps, at least in small part, “I” am lucky, to be in the place that I am, “I” am lucky to be eating the food that I do, “I” am lucky to be using the brain I have; than perhaps “deserving” isn’t the most appropriate word. And if so, than doesn’t one have some sort of moral obligation to repay some of that privilege, as it is not owned, but rather, on some sort of god-given, nature-given, loan? And as intelligent UCSF medical students, applying to any field in the world of medicine that we desire, does that mean we have any obligation to NOT join the richest 1% of America, and instead join specialties that place us below these highest of income brackets? Do we have any obligation not to “steal” from the poor, even if, one argues, it is a socially acceptable, if not celebrated thing to do within our society?

Because otherwise, I suspect, we can more than 100% guarantee that there will be future insufficient Hurricane Katrina responses. Just as there have been unstoppable patterns of terrorism, genocide and holy war in the history of the human race. And each time we will ask why and how and what can we do? And though the answer will seem clear in front of our noses, if we do not hold ourselves accountable on an individual level, it will not change on a community or societal level.

But then, perhaps, this is simply what we deserve.

Refs

Harnack L, Stang, J, Story, M. Soft drink consumption among US children and adolescents: nutritional consequences. Journal of the American Dietetics Association 1999;99(4):436-441.

Ludwig DS, Peterson KE, Gortmaker, SL. Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective observational analysis. Lancet 2001; 357(9255): 505-508.

Nielsen, SJ; Siega-Riz AM, Popkin BM. Trends in energy intake in US between 1977 and 1996: similar shifts seen across age groups. Obesity Research. 2002 May; 10(5): 370-378.

www.gmabrands.com/industryaffairs/docs/comment.cfm?DocID=1467

Also see texts and references of California 2005 SB12 and SB965 for references on pediatric nutritional trends in 2004/2005.

Also see texts and references of California 2005 SB12 and SB965 for references on pediatric nutritional trends in 2004/2005.