don't shut up, please

[aroraborealis]

I'm hearing a lot of righteousness these days. I'm used to getting that sort of thing from the religious right, but this week, it's coming from all quarters. There's a lot of, "How can you even ASK why people didn't leave New Orleans? They're POOR! What kind of insensitive jerk are you that you're blaming the victim?? Sit down and shut up!"

I notice that a lot of the people who have said this are, if not actually affluent, certainly managing to put food on the table and live fairly comfortable lives.



I'm uncomfortable with poverty.

I want everyone in the world to have enough. I want no children to starve, no middle aged people to have to work three jobs, no old people to feel like they have to steal the sugar packets from the restaurant around the corner. I want our society to value all people equally and to provide services to those who can't provide them for themselves, but, really, I want them to be able to provide them for themselves, and, so, what I want is a society that helps people gain the skills to do that.

But I am uncomfortable with poor people.

In truth, I don't have a lot to do with poor people these days. When I was growing up, one of my best friends probably counted as poor, but I was pretty oblivious to the signs. I knew I loved her and I knew her family was different from mine, but I didn't really care. And when I was very little, my family was poor, too, but it was middle class poor: we didn't have fancy stuff, but there was never any question that we'd be going to college.

I don't know how to relate to poor people.

I'm a smart and educated person who sympathizes with people in difficult circumstances, but I don't know how to talk to someone who's not generally well educated. I don't need everyone I interact with to have a high school diploma, but I'll admit that it's easier for me to know how to relate, face-to-face, with someone who has the same cultural referents that I have. I'm uncomfortable with inequality, with inequity, and I'm happier knowing that it's "out there" than that it's "right here."


I'm not proud of it, but there it is. And my discomfort with all of this makes me look at the high-horsing going around, and it makes me wonder: How many of us work against poverty in our day-to-day lives? Sure, we can criticize the situation in New Orleans, which, I agree, is appalling at a bone-deep level, but what were we doing about inequality a month ago? And what will we be doing in six months or a year?

I haven't been doing much. Most of my charity money goes to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and MassPIRG. I haven't been volunteering in a soup kitchen or a shelter, and I don't always have an apple or a boiled egg to give to the homeless guy on the corner. In fact, I often skip buying Spare Change because I just can't be bothered.
And I think I'm a big part of the problem of inequality in the US and the world, because I care, but I'm not really doing anything about it. I know there are lots of people with plenty of money who just don't care, and that's pretty outrageous, but I do care, damnit, so why am I not doing anything?

It's because I'm comfortable in my life and uncomfortable facing these issues that seem so insurmountable. It's so easy to look at it and think that whatever I do, it can't possibly make a difference. I'm not sure that's not true, even, but I don't feel good about not doing anything.

And that's why I don't think anyone should shut up about New Orleans. I think we should ask why people didn't leave, because if we don't ask the damn question, then we can't very well talk about the answer, can we? Does it make someone a bad person that he or she didn't think about the difficulty for poor people in obeying a "mandatory" evacuation that didn't provide means for people without their own transportation to get the hell out of dodge? No, I think it makes that person someone who simply didn't know. And why? It's because we don't talk about class in the US. We haven't, and we don't want to.

If anything good comes out of the disaster in New Orleans, it might possibly be a bit of national dialogue about class, but I'll admit I have my doubts. We're all deeply invested, both individually and socially, in thinking of the US as a pretty egalitarian place, maybe with a few problems, but, really, for the most part, a pretty great place to be, and a place where poor people have a chance to rise up and make a fortune. Never mind that that rarely happens.

I'm sure it makes us all feel better to be able to say, "How dare you ask that question? Sit down and shut up until you can be more sensitive to Those People," but I think that's the wrong approach. Stand up, don't shut up. Ask the questions. And maybe in a few months or a year, we'll all still be talking about it, and maybe we'll be doing something about it.

Or maybe we'll have forgotten that being poor in America, in the world, happens every day, not just during disasters.

Comments

[ghislaine.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree with this post, and yet I posted that "being poor" thing.  It wasn't so much telling people to never ask the question, so much as most people I saw ranting about it (not just asking, which garnered good discussion) conflating poor people with the couple of jackasses who couldn't be arsed to leave.

how to really help the poor

[cos]

I came to the conclusion years ago that the answer is in government. We didn't form a middle class society and greatly reduce poverty in the 20th century by accident, we didn't do it through charity, we didn't do it through volunteer work. Sure, those things are good and useful, and they plug the gaps, but government is the only way to solve systemic problems and government is what actually made that progress. And what has fallen flat in more recent decades (with a bit of comeback in the 90s that's all gone now).

Read this guy's letter - I met him in Wisconsin, he told me his story, and I asked him to write it down so I could make copies and hand them out. Then read Thom Hartmann's article the summarizes this pretty well.

Our current government policies create and sustain poverty. Different government policies could shift millions of people into a regrown middle class and sustain that instead. Poverty is a political choice made by society.

I think if you want to do something meaningful about poverty in this country, you have to participate in electoral politics. It frustrates me how hard it is to get most of even the most politically aware and caring people to do so much as volunteer for a state rep candidate once over the course of an entire year. I'd love to hear suggestions about more effective ways to wake people up to the necessity of doing this.

In the meantime, we've got a bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature that will raise our minimum wage to $8.25/hour by 2007 and add an automatic cost of living adjustment going from there. It's H.B.3782 - call and write both your state rep and state senator, urge them to support it, ask them to tell you if they do.

We've got a constitutional amendment now in process that would require universal health care in Massachusetts. That needs to go to two ConCons (starting this year), but in the meantime there's a petition later this month to put the Health Access and Affordability Act on the 2006 ballot. Sign up, get some signatures.

A few hundred of us just elected one of the biggest advocates of universal health care and a higher minimum wage, to the state senate last week. A few hundred volunteers, and about seven thousand voters, in a district with over 150,000 residents, over 80,000 of whom are registered to vote! And a large proportion of those volunteers were from neighboring towns, not in the district. You could look at that and shake your head at how pathetic the level of participation is. Or you could look at that and see how disproportionately high your influence could be if you become one of the less than one tenth of one percent of people who get involved in electoral politics (volunteering, not merely voting).

Re: how to really help the poor

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Our current government policies create and sustain poverty. Different government policies could shift millions of people into a regrown middle class and sustain that instead. Poverty is a political choice made by society.

I agree with this, wholeheartedly.

And thank you for the links and thoughts on this. I look forward to doing more.

As for how to get people involved, I think there are two things: First, put the information out there so it finds people, rather than them having to track it down. And second, make it easy for people to do things. I talked about holding letter writing parties, for example, which I haven't done, but... this is a good kick in the pants.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

This is one of the most articulate and well thought out posts I've seen on this. Thank you for posting it.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm uncomfortable with this framing of the issues because I haven't seen a lot of people telling each other to "shut up." I have seen people saying, "Of course they couldn't leave, you idiot, they were poor," but I've seen even more people saying, "How the hell could you be so stupid not to leave when there's a hurricane coming?"

Both approaches shut off discussion. They assume that the answers are obvious, and that therefore there's no point in pursuing the issue further. But it's very rare for such a complex issue to have a simple, obvious answer. So I agree with you that we need to be willing to ask the questions. Even -- especially -- when the answers seem to be obvious.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

"Both approaches shut off discussion.

This is what I most dislike seeing, and I think there's a lot of it. I don't think it's fair to blame people for not having knowledge that we (as a society) don't actually make available. Anytime we make the person "stupid" simply for not having information, we limit the dialogue.

I'm glad that you haven't seen people shutting each other down -- I definitely have. But the point, more broadly, holds with what you have seen, too. I think.

insults count as "shutting down" the discussion

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen a lot of people telling each other to "shut up." I have seen people saying, "Of course they couldn't leave, you idiot, they were poor,"...

I think calling someone an idiot is an implicit "shut up".

Re: insults count as "shutting down" the discussion

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

hi, yeah, that wasn't an exact quote, thanks.

(I know, I know: so why was I using quotation marks if I wasn't actually quoting someone? To which I say: "bite me." And you can quote me on that.)

But besides that, you are correct that there are a lot of ways to shut down a discussion effectively without saying "shut up." I suspect that most of the time when people start pushing a discussion in that direction, they don't fully realize what they're doing.

[ghislaine.livejournal.com]

I'm uncomfortable with poverty.
I want everyone in the world to have enough....
But I am uncomfortable with poor people.

I work with poor people every day in my job. I go to their meager homes, meet them in homeless shelters, meet them at their friends' homes who are temporarily putting them up so they won't be on the street. I help them get connected with social service agencies, with programs such as WIC, Food Stamps, Welfare, and Social Security. I help them find affordable housing, though there virtually is none to be found.

Before this job, I had never interacted with poverty on such a direct and daily basis. I've been astonished at how well I often can and do relate to these people, despite the wide wide gap in our past and present experience. I've been astonished to find how kind and welcoming they are of me into their lives (though, granted, I'm offering them assistance and advocacy). And I've been appalled at how shitty these people are treated on a daily basis just because they're poor.

I see first hand, every day, how "our current government policies create and sustain poverty" as cos put it so well. I've never been particularly pulled to practice social work on a macro level, but damn... I sure do feel the necessity growing to do it anyway.

[beah.livejournal.com]

I likewise interact with the very poor and homeless every day for my job. It didn't occur to me to be nervous about that when I *took* the job, but the first time I had to sit down and interview somone 1-on-1, I was. In fact, having now done many such interviews, I find that I'm still a little nervous about each one because I'm not sure how I'll relate, and whether, maybe, the interviewee will hate me just a little because sitting in my office makes it so clear that I am a "have" to their "have-not". But every time, I make a connection. All it takes is one small encounter to see the common humanity in us all. So, as far as being uncomfortable with poor people, I highly recommend aversion therapy. I've found it a dramatic, and rewarding, cure.