Triggered

Triggered. I really got triggered today in Just Faith. Just Faith is a a 30 week class where we meet once a week to talk about poverty and Social Justice  in the world. We meet at St. Mary's Parish in a Suburb of Milwaukee. We were talking about poverty. I talked about my experience in Tanzania about poverty there and yet they were happy and I talked about the frustrations I had with there type of thinking of only the present and not the future. They would eat everything they had now and starve in the future because that is how they have done it from generation to generation. Anyways there is this woman who left the conversation and talked on her phone for about 15 minutes and then when she came back I felt she attacked me. She said, “that is so American and cliché that we assume and think they are happy. We do that just to make ourselves feel better. They are struggling in life and they know life is hard.” She went on for about 10 minutes staring at me telling me how I am wrong infront of everyone because she had been to Haiti and seen extreme poverty there. Maybe it wasn’t a direct attack on me but it sure felt like it. I was ready to rip her head off and prove her wrong. Then I realized why and I getting so upset of this. Why am I triggered. Is it because she is right? Is it because she is attacking my view? Is it because she is like me a is a rich white person who lives in suburbia in a bubble who occasionally goes out and volunteers to make themselves feel better and feel they have contributed to society and then goes back to there bubble with a 50 inch flat screen TV. I refrained and let it go. I don’t need to prove her wrong or prove anybody. That is my ego that wanted to rip her a new one. My picture below is how I felt. I was King Leonidas for Halloween. He is a character from the movie 300.

Maybe the people in Tanzania weren’t happy and just putting a mask on.  Maybe they were happy to me because I was from America, or white or just someone who wants to listen to them and talk to them. I know for a fact though some of the happiest people I have ever seen in my life live in Tanzania. I am sure they are all not happy and some don’t know any different but I do know what I experienced.  I haven’t written in my blog for a bit but I needed to vent.