For those of you who don’t follow baseball, the Seattle Mariners were in the running to go to the finals in baseball, called the World Series. (So American, of course, to call the finals the “World Series” when it doesn’t involve the entire world!) The Mariners are the only team in all of Major League Baseball that has never been to the World Series.
As such, you can imagine how much of a frenzy the city was in. The Mariners flag was hoisted to the top of the Space Needle twice! The downtown skyscrapers coordinated their night lights to glow in Mariners colors. The mayor raised the Mariners’ flag at City Hall.
Game 7 in the semi-finals, which happened last week, was the “win and go to the World Series, or lose and go home” game. The Seattle Mariners lost.
Over the past week, since that loss, the city has been distraught.
Immediately following game 7, there were brutal postgame interviews. Sports journalists, for obtuse reasons, asked weeping baseball players how they felt.
Here’s Cal Raleigh, our inimitable catcher, showing what his face looked like when he was seven years old and heartbroken:
See how he ran his hand through his hair? That was a desperate act of self-soothing while multiple cameras gave him no place to hide his flushed face and wet eyes.
Meanwhile, here’s Bryan Woo, who turned out to be the team’s ace pitcher this year. He’s not crying, but he is also just trying to get through the interview. A wail of despair interrupts him:
The man whose heartache was heard, but not seen, was our cool center fielder, Julio Rodriguez.
So, are grown men allowed to cry or not? Here were professional athletes caught in the throes of disappointment and sadness. They were crying. Sports journalists pushed microphones into their faces and asked them how they were feeling.
On the one hand, I appreciate this exercise: It’s a chance for these robust young men to model (to other males) how to use words to describe internal experiences. They’re not smashing bats into the walls or punching the journalists. You can talk about unpleasant emotions without resorting to violence or destruction.
On the other hand, asking people about their feelings on camera when they are obviously distressed seems unkind. Sure, baseball players, as public figures, have training about and responsibilities to the media. But such pointed questions do nothing to soothe or support the person. Reporters can also learn the exact same information — how do you feel about losing the biggest game of your professional career to date? — an hour later, when people have had the chance to cry and wail in private. Show some respect, give people some dignity!
But we apparently want to see our heroes cry. We want to know that they feel just as sad as we do.
There are many other people throughout the nation who are crying. They are not professional baseball players; they are not famous. Many of us will never know any of their names.
Some of them were looking forward to leaving the street and moving into an apartment! With winter right around the corner, the anticipation of living somewhere dry and warm was thrilling. Because of the government shutdown, though, the mainstream vouchers that would have paid for those apartments are invalid. So they will have to wait for the government to open before they can move inside.
Many of these same people have Medicaid for health insurance. There are also millions of other people with Medicaid who do know where they will sleep tonight.
The federal government has somehow concluded that it’s not worth it to spend money on health insurance for poor people. But, it is somehow cool to take that money to give tax cuts to people who are wealthy. Yes, it is true that, one day, we will all die. Taking health insurance away from poor people, though, is spiteful. It only makes it more likely that they will needlessly suffer while they are alive.
You know what makes suffering worse? Hunger.
The government shutdown, if not resolved by November 1st, will also shut down the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This program, also called “food stamps”, gives financial aid to poor people to help them buy nutritious food. Food banks are already struggling to provide enough food to visitors. Furthermore, here in Washington State, many grocery stores have closed.
Some people are already hungry. More people will join them.
Yes, you’re reading this right: Soon, the same group of people will have increasing struggles to access food, health care, AND housing. What they all have in common is poverty. Literally no one ever says, “When I grow up, I want to be poor and rely on welfare!” Being poor is not a moral failing. No one, regardless of how much money they have, deserves to have the foundations of wellbeing — food, shelter, and health — taken from them.
But we apparently don’t want to see poor people cry. We don’t want to know their sadness. Some people think poor people deserve to be sad. Others think that poor people are not people.
What would we have to admit to ourselves if we felt their sadness? What would we have to change if we acknowledged that their sadness is real?
Maria Yang, MD 