Easter Parade, Severely

"It is a street where poverty meets ambition." -- John Steinbeck hosting O'Henry adaptations

When I was in 11th grade Steinbeck was a deity. Grapes of Wrath was a masterpiece I never yet repurchased and remember my lessons about the text with some clarity. Seeing Steinbeck projected on digital flat screen narrating O'Henry's sentimental vignettes humanizes him, Dust Bowl reporter extraordinaire, an old man  even prior to writing Travels With Charlie. Small microcosms like that, the little episodic revelations, make my thankless task here worth it, not writing to please you, but myself. Steinbeck would smash the ten commandments over my skull due to my learned intolerance. My sister chastised me through her torrential tears. All blacks are not the same, this between bouts of anguish. Her boozer husband had an alleged affair and my eldest niece has MS, and this is why I feel living in the sterile vanguard of Richard Yates, and don't care, but she is still my little sister, with all her sins, terminations. She does not have to deal with the black working class the way I do, Stephanie, my valley girl younger sister who siphons narcissism out of the room, finally settled on being a nurse, the 1400 she owes me gone, but this is sisters. Do I hate her?

No, not akin to how I hate certain classes of activists, but our relationship will henceforth be wary.

Capitalism did not solve my problem with minority exploitation of my disability. Cleaning lady damaged my new interview skirt, tossed some personal effects, and may have filched my food. I am going to take this out on the building manager, Trudy Richardson, also black, whose career seems to benefit from my economic duress in these circumstances. You, no doubt, see my causal links as unfair, (and they are, as Caucasian managers equally benefit from my containment) but I frankly remain indifferent. Black women of certain caste and type victimize me. I've put up with this for a very long time, and fail to envision requisite solutions. If not the custodial staff of this company it will be a future aide on some model via Medicare or Caid. My sister does not have African Americans in her home, rushing about trashing things without asking because their labor is high pressure stress. Furious internal struggle about keeping verbal agreement for second paid visit or not. I fall behind, best of intentions notwithstanding. Complaining to the hustler in charge won't do any good; kicking my landlord's ass keeps me flagged. What a wonderful life.