I enjoyed the article “The Nerves of the Government”. It made me reflect a little more on how the Government communicates to me in my daily life. One example I came up with occurred at my job as a city employee at the public library. I was rather surprised when a poster of Jennifer Hudson was posted, complete with print about the benefits of weight loss was hung up on a bulletin board in our staff room. I am aware that the government is getting more on board about Americans eating healthier and exercising more, but I think Jennifer Hudson is an odd choice. She was never that big. It’s nice for her if she wanted to lose the weight, but she wasn’t morbidly obese. I was sad to see her as a weight-loss spokeswoman, because she looked fine before, and many women in America look like the old Jennifer Hudson, and there’s no problem with it. The poster made me feel self-conscious, and I thought it related back to when the article is talking about ‘”centrally desired aspiration”’ (14). Just by having this poster prominently displayed, coupled with all the images we are already subjected to everyday of thin people, I think most average people buy into the belief that they need to lose weight too. I’m not saying that we don’t have some major problems with obesity and lack of nutrition in this country. But to have our Government be putting up posters in their workplaces of a girl who wasn’t even fat made me uncomfortable.
I like the point on pages 16-17 about how Government employees are more widespread than one might initially think, for example mail deliverers, school teachers, and of course public librarians! I assume that is part of the reason this article was chosen, for many librarians (but by no means all) will be government employees. In addition, we will be acquiring, locating and in some cases, translating, information for the general public. That’s a big job- and articles like this are good reminders that our awareness needs to be raised about who’s spreading (or withholding information) and why.
Another thing the article brought up for me related to my work with the ACCESS website (where people can find out if they’re eligible for and apply for the government benefits of FoodShare, Medicaid, Family Planning Waiver, and Child Care). I have a lot of frustrations with this website, because it is not user friendly for many of the people needing to interact with it. Supposedly the language is at a fifth grade reading level, but even so, navigating it is no easy task, especially for the people who most need the most help. In a previous job I used another website run by the government, where people can apply for SSI and SSDI disability benefits, and this one was also very onerous to work with. The difficulty of accessing government services via the web makes me question if our government really cares or is even aware of different underprivileged populations. My idea would be to have those people who write the laws have to do the type of job I have, where I assist people one-one-one with these applications, so they could get a firsthand look at how frustrating this can be for all.
Also, I have met many people who told me they had no idea how to apply for government benefits. A quick Google search does turn up the website one needs to use, but many are unfamiliar with search engines, and it does require some reading comprehension to even get to the right page. I won’t speculate on if it’s deliberate or not, but it seems to me our government does not make information about where to get help very easily accessible. I hope that as librarians, we can all strive to have at least some awareness of where people can get assistance. I don’t think many public librarians would deny that more and more patrons come in to their libraries seeking help with basic needs, and we need to be prepared for that.
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