people versus money [melora's speech]

The crowd in front of her today is filled with a gaggle of cheering youth squeezing their way into the front section of the town square, shoving past clumps of dour older men who seem to only be attending her speech out of duty, their pale faces already twisting into frowns of disapproval before she's even uttered a word. The division is not lost on her, nor on the Peacekeepers surrounding the square, batons raised in threat as they clear long aisles through the crowd all the way from the front of the Justice Building to the monument against the back wall.

They're restless. How could they not be, when the Finale had lit a match to a district just waiting to become the next powder keg?

"Greetings, District Ten, and thank you to everyone for coming out here.

These unprecedented times have shown more than ever just how starkly inequality runs through our district. Over the past ten years, our district has undergone one of the greatest economic booms in our history - and yet we have to ask, who has benefited? More than 4 out of 5 of us still live paycheck to paycheck, and for so many families - as the lockdown has exposed - one layoff or unexpected expense is enough to lead to financial disaster.

My family is one of those. In the outskirts of the districts, we have received nothing from that prosperity except increased prices on feed and other essentials without an equivalent increase in income. Town expansions continue to threaten us when they lead landlords to raise our rent and drive us out of communities we've built up over decades. And we continue to live with stereotypes of being 'lazy' or 'moochers' attached to our heads, when discrimination and predatory loans make it nearly impossible to break out of poverty."

She pauses to take a breath. People are whispering in the crowd - and she's sure some of them are judging whether she was talking 'white enough', either to praise her for moderating her words to meet their unspoken demands or to point to her carefully prepared speech as further evidence she needed to be taken down before she threatened their superiority.

"As a mother, educator, and proud member of the working class of this district, I stand here today to fight for a district that can give opportunity and dignity to everyone. To end the disparities of wealth, income, and power that have continued to widen the gap between rich and poor since the Dark Days. To allow students to go to school without worrying when their next meal will be. To ensure that no one has to make the decision of putting their family into an endless cycle of debt in order to get the health care they need, or to see themselves as a burden when they are sick and unable to work.

No one's life should be valued less because of where they live or how much money they make. No one should continue to bear the scorn of a system that continues to hold prejudices against working-class communities - particularly communities of color.

It's time for a change. The stability of District Ten cannot be sustained by growing the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. We cannot continue the way we have - with an economy fundamentally built on exploiting the labor of the workers who make up the backbone of our district. And if we are to continue claiming ourselves to be a district who looks out for their own, we must acknowledge the worth of those who have gone underrepresented for too long, and offer every member of our communities the resources they need to thrive."