He then stated that raising the minimum wage was bad because it was an insult to how hard he had worked and how much he earned at his job for other unskilled workers to make the roughly the same amount as he is currently when they didn’t earn it. I started to try to educate him on reasons why raising the minimum wage could be a good thing, and that most people working minimum wage are over the age of 20 and raising it could benefit a lot of people. He kept throwing arguments or insults, and I just responded with counter-arguments. Then his older sister got involved, and started to imply I’m not an adult because I don’t agree fully with her views and that I give her generation a bad name (which her sister agreed with). I just asked questions and tried to make arguments why raising the minimum wage could be helpful for some people and that there are situations in which “actual adults” could have to work minimum wage due to different circumstances and the minimum wage isn’t enough to sustain a family. I did end up bringing up that my cousins are privileged, especially the original cousin because he is a white, able-bodied, cisgendered male in today’s society. He’s granted certain privileges that people who aren’t white or male don’t get in today’s society. This prompted him into going into a rage, saying that I’m privileged and spoiled and brought up my post in May when I was upset that my mom took away my car and cut me off as proof that I am privileged and spoiled. I then responded that I meant that he’s lucky that his parents didn’t have to work 2-3 jobs to support him and his family growing up, that he is afforded some privileges that disabled people or minorities don’t get. And I conceded that yes, I am also privileged because I am a white woman. But that he also has privileges as a man that I don’t. His mother then replied to my comment, saying that when she and my uncle got married, he did have to work 2-3 jobs to help support her and her eldest, and that she worked and took care of the baby. She also said that it’s unfair for me to say my original cousin is privileged and that he does work hard for everything he’s gotten (which I’ll address in my open letter as well). I responded that I was basing my argument on what I was told growing up. I also said that my whole argument was to show the other side of the argument, of why he shouldn’t be “pissed off” that they’re raising minimum wage because then his hard work would be for nothing but that he should consider both sides. And as a last word, I left a link to a huffington post editorial about a white woman who grew up in poverty and was told about her white privilege, that she at first scoffed at but then conceded that yes, she did (and does) have certain privileges that other people may not have.)
When I commented on Ty’s posting, I did not mean to start a war. I was trying to get more information and understand why he was feeling so strongly against the new minimum wage law when it seemed okay in the article his brother-in-law posted alongside the comment. When he commented that raising the minimum would be unfair to him since he worked so hard to get $10+/hr, I wanted to bring facts to light about why it isn’t really about him, but all of his home state. I wanted to bring some perspective, which as a 20 year old man in college, should be something that he should be learning about or interested to learn about. Both sides to a coin. I brought up facts, scenarios, examples both personal and not, to try to show the point of view of people who could benefit from a wage increase, or why it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the economy (like he implied). In fact, I believed that we were having a healthy argument. It’s like debating the death penalty or abortion or legalization of weed. A controversial argument with 2 sides (usually) being debated so each side can learn more from the other. Open your eyes to the world around. Instead, I was insulted, pushed away, and set a target on my back labeled “enemy”. I was called stupid, implied that I’m not an “actual adult” when technically I am, and made to feel like my facts and statistics (which were taken off a government website) were nothing but liberal nonsense and that I’m the reason my generation is the way it is. I stood up for myself. I consulted resources online and my in-laws, who run a non-profit and have experiences in both living in poverty and living fairly comfortable now. I was told “only kids should work minimum wage job; why should a kid make as much as I am if I’ve worked my butt off?” Valid point - it should only be kids working minimum wage jobs to gain experience. But the fact of the matter is that it isn’t just kids working minimum wage. 89% of minimum wage workers are adults over the age 20. Some of which probably have kids to take care of and look after. And you know how expensive it is to have an apartment and car nowadays, with all the fees and payments and insurances you need? Or how expensive a kid is on top of all of that? I mean, you’re all “actual adults”, you should know. Now imagine working minimum wage to try to pay for all of that. 40 hours a week on $8/hour. “Then get a better job”. You need experience to get that better job. You need education to get that better job. But you need the money now. So you scrape by and work and hope to make enough money to cover it all. It’s hard. And yes, there are people out there who work 2-3 minimum wage jobs to cover it all, but how is that fair? They’re working their butts off trying to provide, but you want to keep them at “minimum”. Aunty, you mentioned that your husband had to work 2-3 jobs to help provide for you and your baby. How is that fair? Why should he work himself ragged to provide for his family that he probably didn’t see that much? I mean, working 2-3 jobs you need time for sleep, food, relaxation. I’m not trying to insult you or him or your family, but you have to admit that if he could’ve worked 1-2 jobs instead, that would’ve been a lot easier on him, you, and your kids. And he still could have worked his butt off to get promotions, or get to where he wanted to go career-wise, in order to get the money and buy the things you and your family have. I’m not trying to insult you or say your hard work is unappreciated or unwanted or anything. I’m trying to illustrate a point. Some people, especially minorities, didn’t get what you got. The whole point of raising the minimum wage is to ensure that people work enough to be able to live. That’s why it was instated - to make sure that workers got paid at least so-and-so amount so they could buy things they need and not have to work their butts off just to live in the streets because they can’t afford housing or something. A lot of companies take advantage of the minimum wage. Take Walmart for example. They had a food drive for their employees so their employees don’t go hungry. If the government didn’t raise the minimum wage to $8/hr, do you think they would willingly pay $8/hr? Or would they save money by paying their associates the absolute minimum? Cost of living was also mentioned. “If you raise minimum wage, the cost of living will go up for everyone!” The cost of living is already so expensive. And even if the cost of food goes up from having to pay the employees more, it’s not going to be $20 more expensive for that rump roast just because the employees are getting paid $1-2 more per hour. That’s not how it works. Now I’m not saying that raising the minimum wage is awesome and everyone should earn $15-20 per hour for even the most mundane of jobs. Raising the minimum wage also can hurt people and businesses, especially if the bill to raise minimum wage doesn’t factor in certain kinds of businesses or sizes of certain businesses. Trust me, I did a paper where I argued both sides of this issue. If we really want to help people, the government would have to create a program to help poor people better, or adjust current government-funded programs that are there to help poor people. But you need to step outside your own bubble and realize that life isn’t all black-and-white. There are people of different needs and different backgrounds than you. Also, in terms of what Ty said about me being spoiled and privileged. I am privileged in some ways. I’m white, which earns me some privileges. I’m a able-bodied. I’m cisgendered. And in some ways being an American is also a privilege. But the reason why I was so upset about my car being taken was because I had work the next day and now I had no transportation. I was upset about my phone being cut off because now I had no way of contacting people myself or calling into work or answering potentially important phone calls from my phone. And the vacuum cleaner was promised to me, but that wasn’t really important. Neither was my complaint about being kicked off my mom’s netflix account. There was a bigger picture. Without a car or phone (which are both basically a necessity in our society today), I couldn’t go to work or get phone calls from my work or my college or potential new employers (since I did apply for new jobs recently and had my old phone number as my contact number). Both of those problems were fixed the next day, but even then I had to dip into my savings and pay for my new phone and my new car and everything that goes along with them. I wasn’t upset that I didn’t get to keep my car because I’m a spoiled brat and it’s mine; I was upset because they gave no warning and I had to work the next day. I wasn’t upset because now my free phone was useless and I’d have to pay for a new one; I was upset because, again, I had no warning and no time to look up plans or potential phones or anything. I was thrust into buying a new phone and new car as well as losing money from not working that day. And the only people I could rely on to help were my husband and his in-laws, who, while being gracious and patient and understanding, also didn’t have much money to help me pay for these expensive last-minute purchases and had to either rearrange their plans for the day to help or otherwise just be inconvenienced. I lost my mom and sister that day, who I considered to be basically my only family. My father I only saw a few times a year, and even when I did I saw him sparsely. And you guys, well, I never fit in, did I? I was never really part of your family. Whether that was because of my mom’s heritage/religion or because of my dad’s “lone wolf” thing or because I’m considered weird, I don’t know. And Ty mentioned that I didn’t want to see my dad because I was spoiled or something? That’s not true. When I was 12, I didn’t want to visit my dad for new years because I was a kid and I didn’t want to leave my mom or my stuff behind, and I wanted the downtime to relax and maybe hang out with some friends before school started up again. I was scared of him (as I’ve basically always been since I was young), and when he ended up bringing my mom to court, I was terrified of the judge and lawyers and other adults and only said “I don’t know” or shrugged with my eyes averted because I was scared. I did say that I would like to only see him at most one month out of each summer, and they legally changed the custody agreement to suit what I’d said. It wasn’t because of him, it was because I didn’t want to visit him that week. And the only reason I seem to have “hated” him or neglected him as a child to a parent is because my mom would tell me personal stories (a couple of which were corroborated by my sister) and because I was close to my mom and it tore me apart to be away from her a week or months just because they broke up (mostly until I was a teenager). Also because when I wasn’t around him, I’d forget he existed. Not because I didn’t love him, but because of object permanence (like young kids who think things blink out of existence when you can’t see them). This also happened to school friends if they were in a different class. Ultimately, it’s like my sister said to me the last time she actually communicated with me. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. So to make snap judgments about my life when you only see certain glimpses is both immature and ignorant. I apologize for anything I’ve said insulting, as I didn’t mean to be, but I don’t apologize for standing my ground and trying to educate you on something that you obviously don’t want to learn about. I’ve learned my lesson for the future.
