U.S. politics has become so polarizing. Their rhetoric so divisive, it has put some of us in a superficial survival mode. Like we are in The Hunger Games only in our head, and we are Katniss; us against the other tributes.

With our backs against the wall, blinded by the hate sewn into each word we hear through the news outlets, Facebook, we swing. But the words turn to calcified caca shutting our eyes shut and with all the doodoo in our eyes we don’t see, it is our brother we are punching in the face,

I should stay away from Facebook, but I have my family and some of my friends and old colleagues there — yes, I’m in that age demographic. A crawl through this crude troll-filled jungle usually leaves me triggered at the worst and troubled at the least. I really should stay away.

The latest attack-meme I saw on Facebook said: It is wrong to tax a working person almost to the breaking point, then give it to a person who is able to work, but refuses to. It followed another meme depicting an empty queue for ‘Hiring’ and a long one for ‘Unemployment.’

These memes imply that people rather stayed unemployed and collect unemployment benefits than to work. During the current times, that is a precarious statement to make.

A person may make more on unemployment than while being employed, but should we blame the employee or the employer for not giving fair wages? Or the government for not enforcing livable wages for employees? Or us for not demanding them?

Also, an employee may be medically high-risk or live with a family member who is medically high-risk, and putting their life in danger of contracting a potentially deadly virus may not seem worth it to them.

These kinds of memes spread like wildfire and they are not only apathetic but seriously misinformed. Worst, they induce fear in people who already have little and pin a poor person against another poor person, when the problem is not them, but an inadequate system, that felt short during a critical time.

There are other things that the meme conveniently leaves out:

1. Everyone is taxed regardless of how high or low the unemployment rate.

2. How much gets taken out of taxes has a lot to do with current tax laws.

3. Citizens don’t get to choose where their taxes go. Refer to number one.

4. Social programs are the smallest percentage in the U.S. budget.

5. We are in the middle of a pandemic where both businesses and employees have suffered financially. Hence the rising temporary and permanent businesses’ closures and unemployment rate.

6. We are in the middle of a pandemic (did I say that already?).

It’s like the crab boiling inside a pot situation or as I like to call it, the ‘Hunger Games’ mindset where we find ourselves deprived of so much, we go into defensive mode. We shoot our arrow blindly against any adversary that may come between us and that life-saving balm.

Please don’t take this as me excusing this behavior because I’m not. I am merely trying to understand its root cause because I don’t relate to it. My grandmother raised me to know that even when one has little, one can always give. I lived in a poor household in the Dominican Republic, and while buying food was a daily struggle, my grandma made it a point to make a plate of what little we had for the homeless man that wandered the streets in our neighborhood. She never told me, what she was doing, I watched and learned from it.

My taxes going towards unemployed individuals and families do not scare or anger me. I’m glad that I’m helping indirectly. If anything, I wish the percentage for those programs would be higher and that more of those programs would be available for people who may need a safety net at one point in their lives, especially now.

I surely needed and used that safety net, while I was a single parent and an SPC in the U.S. Army. Even though I had a job and a regular check, the pay was not enough to cover daycare, milk, diapers, and other expenses that creep up when raising a tiny human. Seeing my predicament, my Squad Leader took me to several government offices in downtown Fayetteville, NC to get some aid. She took me to the WIC offices. I applied and qualified. Then she took me to the Welfare office. I applied but didn’t qualify, and then lastly, she helped me to apply for the daycare assistance program. I applied and qualified. This last program paid for almost 80% of my daycare bill, and that was God sent.

My Squad Leader also taught me how to drive while eight months pregnant and took me to get my driver’s license two weeks shy of giving birth. To this day, I love this woman, and each day I aspire to be a bit more like her.

These programs helped me and my child stay afloat. Don’t get me wrong; we still struggled. We lived in a shoe-string budget. My son wore hand-me-down clothes. I used the library as my personal internet provider while doing online classes for my associate degree. I fell behind on some bills, and I cut every bill but the bare essentials. And eventually, after many stumbles, we made it through the other side.

Before applying for these programs, I felt guilty because I knew other moms were worse than me, literally without jobs. I didn’t want to take anything away from them, but my Squad Leader encouraged me to accept the aid, and I’m glad I did. Because it took so much of that financial stress off my shoulders, and I was able to focus on my job as a Soldier and being a mom while at home. Now, that baby is a senior in high school, with his eyes set on college, and that struggling SPC, a Master Sergeant attending the Sergeant Major Academy.

I would always be grateful to these social programs for what it has done for me and what it can do for others in a similar situation.

I believe that’s where our government can be remarkable in extending that metaphorical hand to those that need it. I think that’s where my fellow U.S. citizens can be great, in acknowledging that not everyone’s path to greatness looks the same, and guiding others to help as my Squad Leader did for me.

Memes like this are shortsighted because they rip the uniqueness that is part of our humanity, and clumps every fellow human into a group, undeservedly so. These messages propagated through social media assume that everyone’s struggle looks the same and that if one doesn’t suffer any shortcomings on their way to their goals, others shouldn’t, and if they do, they are doing it wrong. That assumption is false, and we are better than this. I know this.

Here are some facts:

1. The U.S. budget is reexamined and reallocated once every fiscal year.

2. Safety net programs like the one shown on the Facebook meme account for only 8% of the fiscal budget. Along with paying off the interest on the U.S. debt, these programs only make a fifth of the total budget expenditure.

3. The areas that make up the most significant percentage are social security with 23%, Medicare with 25%, and defense with 16%. The Social Security program only benefits workers or their family members if the worker is deceased, and usually, if someone qualifies for social security, they are eligible for Medicare. Therefore, not only is my Facebook friend who is sharing these memes misinformed, he is mad for no good reason.

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Remember, in The Hunger Games, the only way Katniss could make it out alive was by allying; that’s where we are too. We are stronger together. Instead of dividing ourselves and tearing each other apart, let’s come together, pool resources, help each other out.

During these chaotic times, some communities and neighborhoods have been the shiny star in an almost empty galaxy by creating essential community infrastructures that filled in where resources lacked, either with time, volunteering, food, or money.

We came together during 9/11, natural disasters, and so on. We can come together for this too. Don’t let fearmongering keep you from seeing the truth — your country needs you, and by your country, I mean your fellow citizens. We don’t have to wait for a slogan or politicians to make this country fulfill its potential. Because young Jedi, we’ve had the power to do so all along.