One of the funniest interactions I see online, is when Americans think it's inspirational that a young white US child is raising money not to buy themselves something, but to pay off their less privileged classmates' "school lunch debt."
US readers are like 🤗"Oh that's so precious! That sweet kid has a good heart!"
And EU readers are like 😮"Wait a minute... Go back a few steps... WTF is school lunch debt?! That's a real thing?! What is wrong with your country?!"
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow I always call such things the "orphan crushing machine" after this tweet: https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1309325764739858432
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Yeah, that's an absolutely dystopian hellscape, where 8-year olds are having to do the job of the district.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow You don’t have to go as far as Europe. I’m just up in Canada and that boggles my mind.
@kensanata To be fair, applying for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch is a one-page form for people who need it. It's just middle and upper class kids who have to remember to ask their parents for money.
@kensanata @mekkaokereke So much is wrong here that it's impossible to even wrap my mind around it. I would flee, but that would mean leaving everyone I love behind because if I liquidate everything I own and dedicate everything to escaping, I would have no way to help my family do the same.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
Except in England, where child poverty has risen by about a quarter under 12 years of Tory rule...
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow and the , so called “pro-life”, GOP couldn’t even muster a single clap at the State of the Union when Prez Joe mentioned feeding school lunches for ALL kids! 🤬
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Every American "feel good" story is actually a societal failure in disguise. Lunch school debt. Pooling sick days for colleagues. Buying cars for people walking miles and to work since there is no public transit. Fundraising for medical costs, etc. etc.
(Canada is starting to see these cropping up in the news lately as well, unfortunately).
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow their world view is that its your own fault you are poor no if buts or maybes.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow coming in from Scandinavia, having lived in NYC:
Both reactions.
@kensanata @webbureaucrat
Oh, we have tons of ridiculous things we can associate with "debt" and "bankruptcy" here.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Canadians are weirded out by the lunch debt thing too. We don’t tend to have school lunches like America does. This varies provincially.
Kids go to school hungry here too. But staff look out for this & try to help with healthy food that tends to be in the school budget somehow or is supplemented through food banks or some thing. But profiting on lunches in school? Nope. It’s a cheap daily price, if there is one.
@kensanata @webbureaucrat there's no need in most places for anyone but a bureaucrat to know this; it's not very expensive overall and 100% predictable, unless it's being grifted or used as a political chip.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow l see what you mean. But we #EU citizens shouldn't be to proud of what we have. There's plenty of politicians and special interests who wish to abolish it and see the #USA as a positive model. And thanks to them and our own apathy, our #social systems are slowly but surely being eroded... and this has been going on for 40 years at least.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow this is a subject that fills me with righteous fury
This country produces so much food that school meals can be free for every child. Barely a rounding error in the federal budget
@jack @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
Yep.
🤔 I'll never understand why UK Tory voters look at how the worst parts of the US government treats Black folk, and say, "Send over the *exact same far-right advisers* that created those intentionally cruel policies! Treat us like the USA treats Black people! Brexit us right in the face! End our affordable healthcare! We want medical bankruptcy and food debt too!"
I don't get it. We have good exports? Like tacos, and Janelle Monáe? Take those instead.
@kensanata just that it's a pain in the neck. Obviously I too am horrified by the notion of school lunch debt (I starred and boosted), but Vaud can do better.
@Unampho @thekernelinyellow @mekkaokereke As a nation, we are being profoundly fucked in the head by selfish & greedy ideologues
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow America is NOT the richest country in the world. It merely is the home to the most wealthy.
@mekkaokereke Do most/many Americans really see such things as heartwarming, rather than a symptom of a deeply broken system?
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow -Nah. There was a BBC story the other day saying, isn’t it heartwarming that this man in Alabama would go to his local pharmacy and give the pharmacist $100 a month with instructions to use the money to buy pharmaceuticals for someone who couldn’t afford them. You’d think a *British* network would say, “Wait, there are people in America who can’t get drugs because they can’t afford them!? What century is this.” But nah.
@tenet @Unampho @thekernelinyellow I'm not sure what being white has to do with anything" is the mealy mouthed, soft worded way that people say "I'm tired of hearing you complain about anti-Black racism!"
I'm not sure if that's what you're doing, but that's what it sounds like.
So I'm going to answer you in good faith: US news thinks white kids are cuter than Black kids, so they usually make these videos starring white kids, not Black ones. You can easily find several featuring white kids.
@tenet @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
"That's just capitalism!"
"That's just America!"
"It's class! Not race!"
Are minimizing statements that take focus off of the racism that I clearly illustrate. And these comments usually come from people that haven't even bothered to look into *why* America is like this (racism), or look into seeing how much is class, and how much is race (it's mostly race).
It's annoying.
@acb They seriously see it as heartwarming.
People that point it out as not heartwarming, are often attacked with bad faith claims:
👩🏼Why are you attacking a boy for raising money for his classmates?!
👩🏻I'm not attacking him. I'm just saying that school lunch debt shouldn't be a thing...
👩🏼It's a feel good story! Just enjoy it!
👩🏻No it's not a feel good story... because lunch debt shouldn't even --
👩🏼You're attacking him again!!!
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow let's say i was the kid who paid somebody's lunch debt. that same kid couldn't afford a yearbook, i got in-house suspension for cutting out a picture of his girlfriend so he could have it, and that child later died before his 14th birthday of a treatable heart condition but Medicaid wouldn't cover it, and our teachers didn't care enough to ask why he was absent before calling a dead boy a truant in front of the class. #TrueStory
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow we'll get around to school lunch indentureship someday, where a child can clean off his lunch debt by just 7-8 years of working in the mines
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow It's kind of like when politicians congratulate someone (usually retail or food service workers) for their great work ethic of having 2.5 jobs to get by - "Thank you for working so hard for the below-subsistence wages your employers offer!"
@tenet @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
You can swear as much as you like. I still have an issue with what you said.
You said you weren't sure what race has to do with the post I listed, and I told you.
If you look down the original thread, you'll see that my solution is free lunch for everyone, not free lunch for Black kids.
And please don't double down and say, "Hey Black person! Don't talk about [lesser racism] only talk about [bigger racism]!" No. I'm going to talk about all of it.
I'm an American and find it confusing, just as a matter of public policy. As a child, the cafeteria people worked around it when kids forgot their lunch or kept going hungry, though quite a few of us were, I don't know, programed to think that it wasn't right to take straight charity.
But it seems silly in terms of complexity, especially given how hunger impacts learning and behavior. It ultimately costs more to not make sure they're fed. Plus it's mean.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
This whole issue is utterly insane. Somehow I’m an American yet I think that anybody who enforce these regulations should be arrested for child abuse.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow While I hate posting twitter screenshots, this one has become very prolific throughout the web, and applies here very well...
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow This may have changed since school didn't commonly last past lunch while I was in it (until near graduation), but interestingly the concept of school lunches is alien to me (German).
Then again the class issues were palpable even though I had little explanation or context for them and that may be part of it, since I remember that *some* students had to stay at school in the afternoon also 🤔
I wouldn't be surprised if there were lunches that had to be paid for here, though, since most other mandatory school-related expenses like bus tickets or text books did cost (a lot of) money. This place has severe issues in that regard in hindsight, since the quality of the material could vary greatly depending on how much the parents would spend 😒
(The place was rural and the supply store small, but it still stocked low-, mid- and high-grade paper notebooks I believe, and the difference that makes in ease of writing and ink drying is severe.)
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
U.S.: Heart-warming story about kid raising money for parent's life-saving operation
Rest of world: Wait, what?!
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow as an American I have to say I don’t understand it either. How it is a controversial opinion that children should be fed is just baffling to me.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow the state of Colorado passed a law that provides free school lunch to everyone. Bravo Colorado!
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
Yep....gotta pay for school lunches even in public schools here. I sure remember having to take my parents' check up to the school's cashier at the school's cafeteria.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
I mean, to be fair, I'm in the second camp and I suspect a lot of other USians are as well. These days, that kind of "altruism" feels too much like "conspicuous charity" -- making a big thing out of slapping on a bandaid while ignoring the fact that the patient is dying and needs surgery.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Many "heartwarming" stories are, at the core, examples of systemic failure.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Same thing when you see a kid raising funds to pay off medical debt for a family member or a friend. That debt should never happen in the first place.
@mekkaokereke I went to the US as an exchange student. No one even told me how it works, didn't have money on me on the first day. I was super weirded out by having to pay for lunch. And then the options, fries or pizza basically. Food that kids here get at a party maybe but certainly not every day. Ended up bringing my own just because I did not have the stomach for it. And then all the sugary soft drinks! It's 25 years ago, but I'm still not over it.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow USA is the only country in the world besides Somalia (and they're working on it) that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child...because it would interfere with parental rights to abuse.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
I proud of my local school system. Food is just free for everyone now. No stigma for reduced-price lunch, and certainly no "debt".
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow I see it both ways. It's inspiring and uplifting that the kid is doing that - and absolutely fucked that they could even need to.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow to be fair, if I remember correctly, there were just no school lunches in Switzerland 10 years ago, which has its own problems.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Hard same. It almost feels like a concerted effort to kill the idea of basic government service. Trying to get people to go "Awww, it's a chance for kids to experience moral growth!" instead of "THIS IS A SICKENIG TRAVESTY AND IF GOD WAS MORE JUST THAN MERCIFUL, THIS LAND WOULD BE SCOURED WITH LIGHTNING!"
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Most Americans also think that's fucked up. I live in New Mexico, the poorest state by many measures, and we have enacted nearly universal free school lunch.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Like I'm happy the kid was able to pull it off, of course, but fuck everything that put it on the kid to do.
@mhoye @mekkaokereke @jaymerryfield #Alt4You
Post from user Anosognosiogenesis @pookleblinky:
“Every heartwarming human interest story in america is like "he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine" and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you'd need to pay to prevent it from being used.”
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow
We have a whole cottage industry of spinning deeply dystopian stories into heartwarming ones.
*Employees donate their sick days to co-worker so they can get cancer treatment.
*Child opens lemonade stand to pay for their own brain surgery.
*Community raises money so 85 year-old veteran can retire from job as Wal-Mart greeter.
*Teacher wins funding for classroom by taking part in humiliating competition.
etc.
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow Hi. EU reader here. Just read this.
And yes, my first reaction is "WTF is school lunch debt?!"
@mekkaokereke
@Unampho @thekernelinyellow
At least it seems like more US readers are seeing and asking questions about heart-warming stories about a #OrphanCrushingMachine.
(For those unfamiliar with the term: Imagine a "heartwarming" story about some rich guy who saved a bunch of kids from an orphan crushing machine. No questions about why an orphan crushing machine exists in the first place.)
@mekkaokereke @Unampho @thekernelinyellow sad but true: not all children in EU schools get free lunches.
