The Price of a Coffee

Last week, I walked home from a local café, carrying a reused and recycled cup tray filled with our weekly treat. Three mochas, one caffeinated, two decaf, all of them made with oat milk. The treat is one way we try to keep our local independent businesses afloat during this time of closures and pandemic. And sometimes I like to have a destination to walk to.

When I exited the main drag, I pulled my face mask down as I walked on the sidewalk beneath the trees, and past dogs guarding their homes.  One block later, I saw someone heading my direction. They walked in the street, dressed in too many layers, lugging a rolling suitcase.

As I always do when approaching another person, I pulled my mask back on.

The person noticed, and began to speak.

“That’s right. I hope you die from your damn Covid. You and your damn Starbucks coffee.”

I kept walking, and she kept walking too, me on the sidewalk, her in the middle of the street. She kept ranting at me, in an accusing tone. One of the things I think I caught her say after I passed was that she didn't have any coffee.

It was one of those moments where, if I thought for a moment the hot beverage wouldn't have been thrown in my face, I would've offered her one of the three that I carried back to my household.

But besides the lack of assurance that she would accept such a gift, we had already passed each other and it would have felt confrontational to turn back.

So, I kept going on home and she headed to wherever it was she was going.

But I doubt it was a place with running water, indoor plumbing, and warm beds.

I did hope she had some shelter, and a way to stay warm.

I've been thinking a lot lately about rights and privileges, and the way we tend to conflate the terms. My weekly purchase of three oat milk mocha's from my local café is a privilege I enjoy.

The nice home I share with my chosen family is another privilege I enjoy. The type of food I eat? That's a privilege, too.

However, food, water, and shelter themselves are not privileges. They are rights. And saying I am privileged to have them at all, means we run the risk of beginning to believe that not everyone has the right to nourishing food, clean water to drink, and a stable place to live and to call home.

The thing I'm pointing to here, is it too many people don't even have basic rights.

Case in point: another local shop owner commented recently that at age forty-three he was voting for the first time.

Voting is a right he had not been afforded before, because the state had seen fit to keep him caged for I'm not sure how many years. No matter what we think of the system—and no matter what we think of voting—in the United States at least, it's supposed to be a right, not a privilege.

We blur these concepts too often, to our detriment. We call things privileges that are rights, and we call things rights that are really privileges. And those with the most privilege? Too often they believe they are the only ones who should have any rights at all.

I have a lot more rights than the person cursing my face mask and fancy coffee on the street. I have a lot more privileges, too.

I don’t feel comfortable with either, nor should I.

I don’t work any harder than that person does. It takes a lot of effort to find food and shelter when they aren’t givens. It takes a lot more effort to stay safe in a society that would rather not see you at all, and when you are seen, mostly it is to be kicked in one way or another.

I’m no better or more deserving than the person lugging a wheeled case behind them, ranting.

So why is my life easier?

Because I am fortunate. Sheer circumstance, chance, effort, talent, and luck, all combined and I ended up with chosen family. With a house. With food. With clear water.

And my chance of getting gunned down by police?  They’re pretty slim.

I have privileges, and therefore, I need to put in more effort to make sure that others get their rights.

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