CNN Opinion
As many of us excitedly toss off our masks, freshly vaccinated (or freshly faking being vaccinated), and in a hurry to get back to "normal," there is something decidedly "not normal" going on. We're in an era of historic job loss, and yet there are jobs available. Except it looks like no one wants them.
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Hearing about how all these super wealthy people are working so hard to keep so much really made me question the nature of American capitalism. Other countries have rich people, but they also have free healthcare and free or inexpensive higher education. They have a social safety net that keeps people from falling off the economic cliff. They have things like state-sponsored childcare and parental leave. And let me be clear, I'm not talking about the super wealthy people of one particular party. All the billionaires are complicit here, from the right-wing ones to the left-wing ones to the ones who get to host "Saturday Night Live" for no good reason.
One person who I talked to about this is Germaine Jenkins. Germaine runs Fresh Future Farm, a farm that is smack-dab in the middle of an economically struggling neighborhood. Germaine didn't start this farm to be rich. She started it to help people like her, people who don't have access to affordable and healthy food. And she really cares about her people. During the height of the pandemic when her customers weren't leaving their homes, Germaine and her crew would drop off care packages of not only food but toilet paper and PPE. And here's the key part: It was all free. She even helped with financial assistance. And again: It was free.