This country was once a thriving economy of communities that spent summer days at giant glimmering community pools, large group picnics, and potluck Sunday dinners. We once relied on each other to meet our needs, not only from social and physical means but from systemic government practice as well.
This past year, we saw a growing need for diverse communities coming together and humanitarian assistance because of a number of natural disasters that left people's lives in shambles. Through the busy shuffle of life, I carved a few days out and headed to Tennessee and North Carolina immediately following Hurricane Helene. I am familiar with riding dirt bikes, hiking, and camping through challenging terrain, so I immediately called a connection in TN to make a solo trip down.
Once I arrived, I worked with a few non-profits, then made my way to a few churches and Red Cross stations in the worst of hit areas. From there, I spent days looking for families in tents, taking survivors' basic survival camping supplies and directing them toward help. That seemed constructive until the conversation of “help” became way more complex than I anticipated.
I could read in the hypothetical room that most of the areas where I spent time were far-right leaning within their political convictions, however, it was beyond my comprehension how much of a significant role that played in the potential outcome of each family I served. Alongside a few new friends I made, I was rolling up my sleeves with the likes of FEMA, the Red Cross, and the National Guard, all working in unison to get supplies where they were needed, medical care, and federal financial aid to help those rebuild. I was concerningly shocked that there were families who were living in tents, that had a parent or child swept away by the tidal wave of rushing water and refused any and all help from the federal government. The area that I was in had a two-year-old girl who died of hypothermia the night before, and the search and rescue team had trained cadaver dogs working around us. While observing the grief and disparity, I watched individuals sitting on pieces of what was once an old roof, get visibly angry about “government handouts”. They literally turned away thousands in aid proclaiming they didn’t want the current administration's money, and that they would wait for the president that was running (Trump) to “take care of them’.
This change in sentiment toward social services did not shift overnight. In 1956, a poll by the American National Electives Studies stated that 65% of White Americans believed the government should be responsible for providing jobs and creating a minimum standard of living. It was a time where some 60% of American tax dollars went directly to families; beautiful large city pools, free amusement parks, low-cost higher education, the GI Bill, large construction interstates, and so many more social services that created a booming economy. It wasn’t until 1963 when White Americans watched the March on Washington from their modern living room television, where thousands of Black Americans protested their desire for the same access to social services as White families, that America's social experience began to shift. This triggered a culture and policy revolution in the US over the following decades that significantly dropped from 65% in the 1950's, to 14% by 1986 of Americans who believed government subsidies for the American people were a positive investment of tax dollars. These new laws and policies prompted the systemic privatization and closing of most of the socialized amenities Americans once loved and where they cultivated community. Conservative politicians created a culture where Americans frowned on the very social services, for which they once thrived for the sole purpose of segregation.
Fast forward back to this moment while talking to a woman, who was a victim of a horrendous natural disaster that covered hundreds of square miles, rejecting the social services my humanitarian colleagues offered her, was a casualty of this systemic culture shift. She told me she would rather her children starve than receive government help, which has been the exact heartbreaking outcome for so many who are barely surviving in North Carolina.
This woman, these people, who lost everything including loved ones, homes, had cars flipped on top of each other with no running water, however, thought to hang a political leaning sign on their rubble, proclaiming their loyalty to their leader, saw this as constructive disobedience to the administration of the time, even at the expense of her family and wellbeing. Her future is now grim with the potential of the administration dismantling FEMA, small farms in their area have currently lost their aid from executive orders, Medicaid is on the chopping block for over 72 million underserved Americans, and all federal subsidies are hanging by a thread from a federal judge that is attempting to prevent a looming inevitable for masses of people.
What is even more disheartening is that these victims will not know how or why they will suffer. If and when their aid freezes, they will wait for their leader to rescue them, and he will never come. They will be told a different narrative that is once again far from the truth, having them repeat choices against their best interest.
There are many lessons to be learned from this experience, however, despite the liquidation of social services, I witnessed a ray of hope for the American people. Every local church and school became a distribution hub for basic needs. In fact, an unintended consequence was the overwhelming measure of everything that was donated from all over the country. People drove for hours with their trucks, trailers, and cars filled to the brim with bottled water, tents, food, and clothes and overflowed small country churches and schools in Tennessee and North Carolina. There were large areas where there was no cell phone service, so the local community members would drive to local hot spots first thing in the morning and have a cup of coffee and a serving of breakfast casserole prepared by someone who still had electricity. There were families splitting responsibilities of cleaning moldy houses, while someone else would take school children to the playground at the elementary school to give them a sense of normalcy, to feel seen, process trauma together, and be fed.
It looked as if a bomb hit these areas with roads torn from the base with piles of twisted metal and siding left from a force of water that showed no mercy, yet there were smiles through exhaustion and hope. Hope that together, we will make it. It may not look like it did before, with a different structure, maybe an altered means of communicating, or new ways we engage in fun, however, we have an opportunity to bring back the potluck meals, and the community events and re-engage with each other. The dire fierce independence we have adopted over decades of deinstitutionalization will become past tense, and we as a collective, will open a door to thrive as a people.
Right now, there are communities all over our country coming together out of necessity to survive. The hurricanes that hit Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, the fires that ripped through southern California, and the tornados through the central plains are all rebuilding. We need to be watching and learning. They are our teachers, examples of hope, of rehumanizing what we have lost through an unhealthy measure of self-reliance. Take notes. They may be the most valuable lessons we learn in the years to come.
Written on February 13, 2025 by Erin Solano-Cox M.A. Psychology, Class of 2025, B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies, Class of 2023, College of Arts and Sciences University of Cincinnati, International Honors Society in Psychology, West Chester, Liberty Township Chamber Alliance Women of Excellence Award, Literacy is Power
