Hating on the Poor

[paft.livejournal.com]

The author responds to a comment on her blogpost Why I Make Terrible Decisions:

I would like to understand what you are really angry about. Is it that I am poor and insufficiently servile about it? Is it that you legitimately think that you are somehow morally superior? Is it that I dared to write my thoughts down and someone forced you to read them? Is it that you never spend fifty dollars a month on something that could be used elsewhere, and you are extra judgey about it because it is the thing you have to be judgey about? Is it that you are an antismoking warrior and doing the world A Service by wishing ill on random Internet bloggers? Is it that you are uncomfortable with the idea that even if I have no money I am allowed to sometimes complain about life? How rich do I have to be before I am allowed to have objections to the current class system? What amount of money do you think gives me the right to be human?

More and more, offline and on, I’ve been seeing the “a feature, not a bug” argument about the increasing income disparity between the very rich and the rest of us. It’s an argument best summarized as, “Forget the poor. They’re losers.” Salon has an acid piece up about Tyler Cowen and the upcoming “hyper-meritocracy,” which includes some of the euphemisms people like Cowen love to use about the fate of the non-wealthy in the brave new world he’s so excited about. “Tough trade-offs,” and “common sense” for the rationale (which I’ve encountered here) that since we can’t help every single poor person, we shouldn’t help any of them.

Along with this blithe rejection of an increasingly large portion of the human race is a tendency to vilify the poor. After all, if one is going to relegate all these people to a life of hunger, illness, and exhaustion, it’s important to convince oneself that they deserve it.



A piece by a blogger called killermartinis is a welcome antidote to the Friedmans and the Cowens of this world. Yes, the author says, poor people often make bad decisions. Here’s why. Here’s what it’s like to be poor.

I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.


And her reaction, posted at the beginning of this OP, to the inevitable hostile commenter reacting to the fact that she (horrors!) smokes cigarettes, is as worthwhile a read as the article.

What she (and, inadvertently, the commenter) highlights is the assumption that a poor person who complains about being poor is speaking out of turn. A poor person should be ashamed of being poor, to the point of giving up even those small pleasures they can afford, and should not talk back to his or her literal wealthy “superiors” – who, if the poor person is really, really good, might toss a few nice leftovers into a donation box. The word “uppity” is rarely used, but it’s pretty similar to the affluent white attitude towards blacks that I remember from the American south of my childhood, which often involved a definition of “good” that required a staggering level of self-abnegation. A passage from Sinclair Lewis’ satiric novel about a fascist takeover in the US, It Can’t Happen Here, sums it up:

“In order…to give the most sympathetic aid possible to all Negroes who comprehend their proper and valuable place in society, all such colored persons, male or female, as can prove that they have devoted not less than forty-five years to such suitable tasks as domestic service, agricultural labor, and common labor in industries, shall at the age of sixty-five be permitted to appear before a special Board, composed entirely of white persons, and upon proof that while employed they have never been idle except through sickness, they shall be recommended for pensions…”

The awful part is that this seems generous compared to the current right wing libertarian attitude towards the poor.

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Comments

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Could you use lj cut please? Thanks in advance.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I threw my iPad down in exasperation at broccoli is intimidating.

Query: Are people poor because they find broccoli intimidating or do they find broccoli intimidating because they are poor?

Follow up: What did poor people eat before the advent of fast food? Surely there were few people poorer than my father's family during the Depression and yet my grandparents were not only able to cook broccoli they were able to grow it.

For the record: I am not a fan of meritocracy. It is built on they lie that we are all meritorious. We are not. No one would like it if they got what they really deserved.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Here's a link that starts off with one of those tired memes you reference, about the poor buying things they don't "deserve," and turns it around on its head a bit. I think it's good evidence that before we judge others, we should maybe just not.

http://fozmeadows.tumblr.com/post/66916915720/seananmcguire-cumbersome-cucumber

There's a great quote on this: "Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." -- Herman Melville

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

"The awful part is that this seems generous compared to the current right wing libertarian attitude towards the poor."

I am truly at a loss how this is much different than this: "Understand the single most defining characteristic of a liberal or a leftist is that they are lazy. They do not want to work. They do not want to strive. They want an easy and paid-for life as much as possible."....which was from a link, to which you responded by taking it personal, giving personal family info ending with: "Do explain what you know about them that warrants this insult."

Rather than list all my righteous attributes and those of my family who are pretty much mostly right wing libertarians (or worse yet, some are right wing Christian Fundamentalists) I'll just ask, do you think there is a difference?

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

with the dissipation of our US middle-class, I often wonder how soon will it be before we are mimicking once-upon-a-time-Russia and begin to advocate for a more humanistic (read socialistic) means of living? People here in the USA are very socialistic when it comes to thoughts on caring for the old/elderly/retired (e.g. Medicare services). How long before those attitudes seep into other facets of life and community? I know no one to date who can forecast that . . . too many variable to account for if you ask me.