When Mitt Romney started talking about my tenants I was taken aback. Is there something morally wrong with owning or renting apartments? Are apartment dwellers some sub-class of being, less equal than homeowners? These are the people who pay my bills.

Of course we try to find potential renters who are employed to pay the rent, but have at times rented to people on disability income, social security, welfare, or even student’s who had their parents co-sign for the apartments. The 47% contribute to the economy because they pay us rent, and we pay taxes. It is a win-win for all of us.

We even made some of the 47%ers apartment managers. Many have excellent social skills, are empathetic, and hard workers. Are you listening Romney?  I remember one, a little old Jewish lady who was a survivor of the Titanic. Molly, I know it sounds Irish, was a doll. Sure she had her faults as any human being does, but she was a housemother to the tenants and they loved her. My father suffered from trying to help out the less fortunate, more than some of the less fortunate wanted to help those who were less fortunate. He would laugh at his compassionate persona and say that he was a ‘Social Worker’. He was a mensch.  We still have another 89-year-old manager, a Latvian artist/gardener who has worked for us for 56 years. He was hired the year before I was born by my 1%er father when he was still a 47%er.

Romney’s choice, if it was a choice, to describe the 47% as Victims is degrading and insulting. ‘Victim’ for some reason seems to imply that a police report should have been filed, as if some crime has been committed. Not having money is not a crime whereas many who may have been Victimizers and criminals may have been in the 1%. I think Romney’s choice of words is a form of subconscious projection due to his upbringing and conditioning in an insulated world where xenophobia of the masses is the norm. 

Bernie Madoff, not a nice Jewish boy, has Victims. Catholic Priests and Boy Scout leaders who abuse children have Victims. Are people who’ve had jobs outsourced to China due to corporate greed Victims? If so then that might explain the thinking that made Mr. Romney choose to use that word instead of another term that would remind people of his privileged status in the upper top percent of the 1%.  Maybe that is how some 1%ers like to hear the story of income inequality stated.  I prefer to say ‘less fortunate’.

Molly, definitely less fortunate, wouldn’t have voted for Obama because he is a Negro. She called them ‘Blackies’.  She didn’t like people with children either. She definitely wouldn’t have rented him an apartment. We of course tried to educate her that her rental preferences where not in accordance with the fair housing laws and thus illegal. Like I said, she wasn’t perfect. We ended up taking away her right to rent the apartments so we could comply with the law and do the right thing. We didn’t fire her, or outsource her, or change her. People don’t change so easily, especially Titanic Survivors and politicians. The rest of the 53% who might consider hiring Romney as the commander and chief of one of the most powerful nations in the world might want to re-evaluate that position. It is harder to fire them than it is to hire them. Oh, and thank you 47% for being you and Shalom.