Anywhere in the U.S., you will find that the underpaid, under-benefited jobs are saturated with people of color. Never mind the reasons behind white people being offered the higher-paying and often less physically strenuous positions; the more controllable concern stems from the places where passersby are falling short. The unreasonable expectations placed on workers, particularly workers of color, by the users of their services make it clear that we engage in the receiving of care by service workers in an entitled manner. All around the dining hall, I see spills and crumbs that could have easily and quickly been wiped by the doer. Instead of students scooping their leftover food and used napkins into the trash, they just leave it all on their plate and leave it on the dish conveyor belt and never have to think about it again. All around me are people holding together the spaces I eat, sleep, and laugh. And all around me are students who exist as if those people are invisible. People do not question the small ways that they expect anyone aside from themselves to put back together what they have undone, or clean the dirt that they have created, and that is an awareness that weighs on me always. Every job is just that- a job. It is to make us money so that we can live. It speaks to the privilege that those around me exist within, that they are so comfortable not making someone else’s job just the tiniest bit easier for the price of an extra minute from their day. My body is often too weak to add even just the extra steps to walk to a trash can unless I am already going in its direction, so why do the athletes who walk with ease fail to think how I do, since they are able? Who taught them to run five miles and still leave their chairs unpushed? Why are these workers, who I have made my friends, not getting the chance to sit? Mr. Jones has a foot injury, and I asked him if he would be allowed sitting breaks; he said “no”. He works 12 hour days on a limp. He is a senior citizen. In fact, the majority of UMBC’s dining hall staff are senior citizens who work 12 hour shifts with few breaks. Many of them have some form of disabling injury. Why do the white elders get to play bingo and experience “golden years”, but Ms. Jane has to pick up your trash? They are not allowed to have needs. I am supported by people when the university descriminates against me for my disability, but when Ms. Lisa is carrying bags of our garbage with a hurt back, no one interferes. This is a mindset that is killing people of color at the same speed as the racist medical and mental health systems that these same people must go to when work steals their well-being. These friends of mine are beautiful and filled with stories. Mr. Farihut moved here from Persia in the 90s; Ms. Linda lost her mother but is healing from it, Ms. Krystal is tired of her job and quitting next week but has the most beautiful smile. Ms. Brenda is one of the funniest people I know, and she worries about me when she doesn’t see me. These people have children, love, joy, and laughter.

We have accepted the notion that we deserve, but more so, are entitled to the care without returning it.
As a very young child, likely even before the age of four, I was told that I had a “gift”. I was “a light in this world” because I always handed my food or clothes to people I walked by on the streets. When I was in California, where I’m from, my uncle yelled at me in the middle of me handing my box of Cheerios to a man through our window at a traffic stop. I asked him why he did’nt give the man the money I saw on his dashboard. He said that the man would use it for drugs. I asked why the man needed drugs, my uncle had no response. I was five, and for the following ten years, I would never receive an answer about why someone on the streets used drugs. I always knew there was a reason, though. It made me mad that everyone around me kept blaming the person using the drugs, and making it the excuse for not helping them. While I realize now that these feelings and actions might have been unique to other children my age, I have never stopped receiving the message that my viewpoints make me “special”. And let me tell you, nothing pisses me off more.

You are telling me that my basic humanity makes me a gem, a light, special.

Thank you for the compliments, but if you don’t plan on using whatever action I took that caused you to tell me as inspiration to do the right thing yourself, then kindly fuck off. Because most days it feels like I am carrying the weight of all the kindness that is missing in this world and doing it for you.