I've been feeling torn myself about contributing to Shannon's GoFundMe. Of course she should get the health care she needs, but should I be the one paying for it? Does crowdfunding needed health care let our government off the hook? I don't want Shannon to suffer or be the poster child for our dysfunctional healthcare system, but I also don't want to prop up our broken system with a (poor and working class) people-funded workaround.
When I see billionaire Jeff Bezos saunter off his rocket ship in a cowboy hat and then thank Amazon customers and employees "for paying for all this"-- meaning his joy ride in space--my blood boils. If our government functioned as it should, people like Bezos would be paying more taxes and paying his workers a living wage with benefits and people like Shannon would be getting the healthcare they need.
Another problem I have is shaming people for not helping. Asking for help is one thing. Demanding it is another. Maybe I suffer from oppositional/defiance, but as soon as someone tells me I better do something or I'll be in trouble/blacklisted/called an asshole, etc., I don't want to do it. Yes, it's important to exercise my empathy muscle, but not because I'm afraid of embarrassment. Because I truly want to give. And I'm the one who knows best how much I can afford to spend and where it means most (to me) to spend it.
I've seen stories about how Medium is a community and as a community we should help each other. That makes sense. But aren't I the one who decides which communities I belong to? If I read your story, am I obligated to follow you? Do I have to join your club? As a writer here myself, I WANT people to read my stories--the more the better. I don't consider them indebted to me when they do. Both readers and writers are giving and receiving.
The last GoFundMe I contributed to was for an older Chinese woman from Chinatown in San Francisco who was attacked by a homeless maniac while waiting for a bus and beat him off with her cane. I contributed because I felt connected to her in multiple ways: I live in SF; I ride the bus; I have been threatened by mentally ill people on the street; I'm an older woman; I have a beloved family member with a mental illness who has also been homeless; I know firsthand that people who live in Chinatown are poor. Plus, I admired her courage in weilding her cane, and I liked that her son was the one to set up the campaign. But although I respect and enjoy Shannon's good writing, our points of connection are few.
All the drama about this on Medium is interesting in a perverse kind of way, like an old TV show from the '50s called Queen for a Day, where three or four women would get up and each tell their sad stories, and the woman with the saddest story would be declared Queen for a Day and win a washing machine or something. It was horrible.
And speaking of drama, call me a cynic, but I can't help thinking that some of the people publishing "support Shannon" stories are not motivated by altruism, but trying to profit from the general interest in Shannon, who has a gazillion followers and is a top writer here.
Finally, I didn't know those facts you revealed about the GoFundMe platform supporting racism and being anti-choice. That's truly disturbing.
All that said, I hope Shannon raises the money she needs for her surgery. I might even contribute to her GoFundMe. That's for me to know.
