An Open Letter to Sarah Palin

Dear Sarah Palin:

My name is Joshua Kanary. I am the Community Organizer for a homeless group. I; like the many other community organizers at various agencies across the city, county, state, and nation; work very hard for the underprivileged and impoverished people in my community. I work long hours in the Cleveland area in order to educate and involve the community towards ending poverty in this wonderful nation that I love, because, as I’m sure you would agree, the community itself can provide more help at a grassroots level than a government agency ever could. I often come home late and am too exhausted to do little more than cook dinner for myself and fall asleep in my studio apartment. I do not get overtime pay, but I always proudly work longer than the 40 hour work week I am paid for.

I get paid very little (less than a quarter of the $125,000 a Governor of Alaska earns) in order to stand up for families facing legal and financial abuse from unscrupulous landlords, homeless people facing harassment from petty police and public officials, and children forgotten and neglected by a swamped and overly bureaucratic system. At the end of the day, powerful enemies throwing obstacles in my path outnumber friends struggling in the same battle I have been waging for years. Like you, I am not here to make friends but to serve my community and my country. What I do is hard thankless work, and I do it because I know what I’m doing is good and right.

Therefore, I have to ask, what did I do to you that would make you ridicule and belittle my work, my passion, and my career to an audience of millions across the nation? In your speech given to the 2008 Republican National Convention, you said I (and every other community organizer in every one of the 50 states of the United States of America) have no “actual responsibilities.” You mocked my efforts as well as the efforts of thousands across this nation who put their country first, ahead of even themselves, when you said, “This world of threats and danger, it’s not just a community and it doesn’t just need an organizer.” You smiled as your audience laughed at everything I have dedicated my entire life for.

I help people the entire country has given up on to fight the odds and climb out of poverty and stand on their own two feet. You laugh at that.

I help people with disabilities and nowhere else to turn find community resources that will empower them to find stable, affordable, and livable housing. You laugh at that.

I go into schools and speak to children as early as 3rd grade. I teach them about homelessness, what it is and what its causes are. The children always ask what they can do to help, and I show them how even at such a young age they can serve their country and make an impact in the world. You laugh at that.

I have spent months fighting just for one client. She is a single mother living alone with her two children in a house missing windows and needing repairs. Every month, her landlord refuses to pay the water bill and the water company threatens to shut off service. Every month, on a schedule I could set my watch to, I must jump through the exact same hoops, argue the exact same arguments, and deal with the exact same obstacles in order to get the landlord to uphold his end of the lease and keep the pipes running in my client’s home. You laugh at that.

I stood before the body of Anthony Waters, a homeless man beaten to death on the streets of Cleveland, and bowed my head in prayer. I tell his story to whomever I meet wherever I go so people won’t forget his struggles and will realize the urgency of help needed now on our city’s streets. You laugh at that.

You have insulted myself and many others fighting the same fight I am in order to better serve our country. I am deeply offended and I don’t understand what I have done to draw your ire. I am serving my country just like you. I am giving back to the great citizens of this nation just like you. Why are you attacking me? What have I done?