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Lace on Race

Ok. This.

The watering down of paid leave requirements is a serious flaw in what was being hailed as comprehensive legislative response to a crisis unheard of in my lifetime.

They absolutely could have, and should have, done more.

The Democrat’s penchant of rolling over at the slightest whiff of pushback is seen in full force here.

I have a dog in the hunt in this. I am watching employers, including my own, watching and waiting for the federal response. They are committed, despite their rhetoric, to doing the absolute minimum. The Federal guidelines and laws will be the benchmark upon which state and local governments, as well as private industry will base their own policies.

What we are seeing here is cover for them doing less than they could and should.

As many of you know, since November–over four months and counting–I have been battling illness of my own; not this virus, to be sure, but an illness bad enough to knock me out. At its worst, December and January, I missed almost a third of work days. I have absolutely no more sick or vacation time left.

I am on the mend, thankfully. But now I am in basically the same boat with those with no paid personal time. We will all be depending on the actions of those who hold both our lives, and our livelihoods, in their hands.

Two Wednesdays ago, I had a lingering, annoying cough. I felt ok, but it was annoying to my colleagues, and given the current situation, somewhat concerning. I took the day off, so as to protect their ears. Welp. That brought my vacation time to zero. If I am affected by the coronavirus, or am in contact with someone who is, right now, I have no help.

The minimum is not good enough.

So then. The abject failure of meaningful action on the part of the most powerful on behalf of the most vulnerable; the elderly, the economically marginalized, those of us who weathered the winter without any props in place, all of us told to stay home for the sake of the communities we live in, have no actual net.

Staying home is not only for one’s own protection. It is for the protection of those around you. But bluntly, you are treating yourself like Person Zero, self isolating for the greater good.

That by itself is asking the heroic of the citizenry. To ask them to do it at great financial sacrifice, while corporations can put out press releases and do as little as possible for the personnel who have garnered them profits, is stunning.

That the government puts those corporations and other large orgs over the people they supposedly serve is egregious.

We expect this level of heartlessness from one side of the aisle. But not the other.

Target has based its entire pr and marketing on being the ‘Anti-Walmart’–inferring, but not outright saying that shopping them is better from a moral and ethical standpoint than shopping with the Barons of Bentonville. It’s mostly untrue; their business practices are no better than Walmart’s, but their ads with pretty people prancing around with bright smiles and fast cutaways, have served to make Americans believe that paying the small but real premium to shop there is a better choice.

So it is looking the same on Capitol Hill. Democrats lean on image and perception to make it seem as though they care more for Americans, but this bill indicates the opposite.

In a crisis like this, we need more than optics. We need real action and relief. If Democrats want to take back the White House and cement gains in Congress they would do well to keep this in mind.

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