infosoldier.com

Jobe is eleven years old. The youngest son of my in-laws, an elderly couple who subsist on social security checks the US government sends monthly.

Martín is ten. Just one more kid in a string of many coming from an impoverished family. I lack further details.

My wife brings his brother Jobe to my niece's first birthday party in my car. He has sixty dollar sneakers and a flashy New York Mets cap.

Martin is already here when we arrive. He cleared the six point five miles from his wood and zinc roof house to the party in his rusty bicycle. He brings his best clothes; a t-shirt and jeans.

Jobe is smart. With all around good grades. He has seen the example of his elder brother and his sister. My wife and my brother-in-law are both college graduates. Jobe has also grown naive. The product of parents that are much too old and riddled with religious fanaticism.

Martin is streetwise. He gets by on charm and a quick smile. He's most likely to survive a street corner encounter that would get me killed, mugged, or worse. His grades aren't good. None of his brothers or sisters have even seen the inside of a proper college.

Jobe will probably go on to a Christian college. He will be brainwashed into religiousness. He will become another mass consuming tax paying middle class peon. He will thrive.

Martín's future is less savory. He will join the friendly neighborhood "punto" or drug selling corner. He will probably get murdered before he reaches 25.

I should mention that Jobe is "white" while Martín is black. Although race is not the issue here. Nor is it religion, or a lack of it. (If anything, religion may give your life a structured conditioning to become a socially accepted citizen. But, at the expense of botching your critical thinking capacity which in turn may drive cultural change and evolution.)

I can't help but think that to a bureaucrat in Washington, where most of puertoricans futures are ultimately decided, there is no difference between Martin and Jobe. On paper, their lives measure the same on economic, and social levels.

While both Jobe and Martín are poor. Jobe belongs to those best well-off, while Martín belongs to the poorest of the poor. To me there is a huge difference between the lives of Martín and Jobe; with life and death waiting in the balance.