One of the boys asked me if I was going to eat this and I shrugged. I assumed I had no choice. It was my lunch after all. So I closed the lunch box and we continued our way to school where I put my lunch box alongside everyone else’s in the designated coat closet.
During class, Mrs. Corey sniffed along with the other students as everyone tried to detect the source of a hellish stench. Crinkling her forehead, she demanded to know if someone soiled their pants or if someone brought a dead creature into her classroom. All of the students were squeezing their noses and making mock gagging noises. It was clear Mrs. Corey could not teach until the matter of the rancid fish smell had been solved.
The boys I had walked to school with pointed at my offending lunch box upon which Mrs. Corey walked cautiously toward it, as if approaching a landmine. She slowly opened the box and stared at the box’s contents as if witnessing an abomination from the bowels of hell. Then looking at me, she said, “Did your mom pack this?”
I nodded and Mrs. Corey winced in a way that seemed to castigate my parents, my extended family, and my ancient ancestors. With a sour expression, she then closed the lunch box, gave it to the teacher aid to place outside, and announced to the class that my food was unfit for eating and that she needed volunteers to take one thing out of their lunch and give it to me so that I would have something to eat during lunch time.
During the lunch break, I was too mortified and ashamed to have an appetite and I remained on my blanket while avoiding the odd stares from my classmates. It was my first lesson on how generosity, no matter how well-intentioned, becomes a burden when tinged with pity because the recipient of the charity feels belittled, humiliated and smaller as a human being than the giver. Charity is too often a bargain in which the recipient loses his dignity and feels bankrupted in so many intangible ways that accepting the charity becomes impossible.
No offense, but that sounds like something written by a rightwingnut, or Rush Limbaugh. Giving or receiving charity is bad? That's warped.
Posted by: Ed | 05/13/2013 at 03:03 PM
I wouldn't want a RW nut to misuse my piece as it's not my intention to support a RW POV. Also, I would not want ALL charity to be dismissed as being born of bad intentions. My focus is on the humiliation of being pitied.
Posted by: herculodge | 05/13/2013 at 03:20 PM
OK, I see your point, but I would point out that pity and empathy and compassion are not synonymous. Someone might misinterpret one for the other, but that's them, and a person thinking that pity is humiliating does not diminish the importance of empathy and compassion in this life.
Posted by: Ed | 05/14/2013 at 10:22 AM
i agree with you. In the case of the tuna fish fiasco, the boy feels stigmatized and scorned. His classmates are too grossed-out by the rancid fish to contemplate the virtues of empathy, or at least most of them are.
Posted by: herculodge | 05/14/2013 at 10:28 AM