by Ruth
A. Sheets
Raise
your hand if you are sick of old, rich, White folks pontificating about
poverty. If you’re like me, you don’t want to hear one more complaint that:
if the minimum wage is raised, poor people will be disincentivised to work;
if Medicaid is available for the poor, there will be no reason for them to seek a job. Besides, they’ll end up wasting tax dollars on their medical care since they won’t bother taking care of themselves anyway;
if Food Stamps are available for poor folks, they won’t go to get help from their local religious and service organizations where the help should really come from in the first place;
if decent housing is provided for the poor, they will only destroy it anyway;
if unemployment is extended, folks will just be lying around not looking for work at all;
why should anyone worry about poor people voting; they don’t contribute anything of value to society.
Statements like these regularly come from those old, rich, white folks, even those in public office. And they profess to believe it all.
What’s happening here? The people in power, the wealthiest among us choose to keep Americans believing that poor people are poor because of their own actions. The poor are lazy, unmotivated, greedy, God-forsaken moochers, the “takers.”
And, the inverse must therefore be true; the rich and powerful are that way because of their own hard work, superior intellect, cleverness, and favored position in God’s sight, the “makers.” If poor folks worked hard enough they could have it all too.
The privileged can’t imagine, let alone acknowledge that their parents’ money, their skin color, the schools they attended, their better health care, the networks they were able to tap into, and just plain luck had anything to do with their current situation. It would totally rock their world.
That might mean people who are poor don’t choose poverty and don’t employ less effort than the more fortunate.
My goodness! That might mean the pontificators have no right to look down on those who are poor. What shall they do? Blaming the poor and struggling folks is all these morally bankrupt “makers” have.
if the minimum wage is raised, poor people will be disincentivised to work;
if Medicaid is available for the poor, there will be no reason for them to seek a job. Besides, they’ll end up wasting tax dollars on their medical care since they won’t bother taking care of themselves anyway;
if Food Stamps are available for poor folks, they won’t go to get help from their local religious and service organizations where the help should really come from in the first place;
if decent housing is provided for the poor, they will only destroy it anyway;
if unemployment is extended, folks will just be lying around not looking for work at all;
why should anyone worry about poor people voting; they don’t contribute anything of value to society.
Statements like these regularly come from those old, rich, white folks, even those in public office. And they profess to believe it all.
What’s happening here? The people in power, the wealthiest among us choose to keep Americans believing that poor people are poor because of their own actions. The poor are lazy, unmotivated, greedy, God-forsaken moochers, the “takers.”
And, the inverse must therefore be true; the rich and powerful are that way because of their own hard work, superior intellect, cleverness, and favored position in God’s sight, the “makers.” If poor folks worked hard enough they could have it all too.
That might mean people who are poor don’t choose poverty and don’t employ less effort than the more fortunate.
My goodness! That might mean the pontificators have no right to look down on those who are poor. What shall they do? Blaming the poor and struggling folks is all these morally bankrupt “makers” have.
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