Contrary to certain opinions, people who experience poverty do have hopes, dreams, and potential. Poverty can be a state of mind as well as a category of socio-economic status. There are some rich people who live poor lives and there are some poor people who experience a richness in life that elite people never know exists, let alone experience. As an educator, I see the sickening pedagogy of poverty applied more and more, growing rampant in our schools and being orated in political speak. Below the fold is a story that maybe can help dispel the notions poverty equates to lazy folk scamming the system, black kids do not study, and that people in poverty are not capable of knowing what is really going on around and to them. Although people in generational poverty may not be able to articulate in "fancy fashion" what they know is really happening or not on their behalf, do not underestimate their survival skills, ability to overcome, their desire to earn a decent living wage, or the desire for their children to play on at least a more level playing field than currently exists.
It is not until recently that I am beginning to truly understand why my great-gram always said and made me promise to get a good education and move far away from the town where we resided. I was raised by my great-gram in a small college town in the Midwest, about 15 miles from the Midwestern HQ of the KKK. My gram was a white woman who grew up on a country farm and attended school in a one room school house. However, being white did not shield her from concerns regarding the KKK. I lived in her home, my dad was black, and gram, in some circles, was deemed the not so affectionate title of "nigger lover".
They said it to her face on the streets, in stores, and even some of her own children said it, generally with me in earshot of the noise. The same people would also poke fun at my gram's grammar. It was broken country grammar, and one could see the condescending treatment she received because of it. It used to drive me insane. My gram was far from unintelligent, but people just went by what they saw, a white lady with a black baby and they thought, shame shame.
We lived in what was considered the de facto ghetto, but I still do not think we were "poor". We attended an all black church, which is where my gram actually passed a away during morning worship service years later. Our church was our family and inclusively welcomed us. It was one of the few places my gram wasn't called a n-lover or me called a n-baby.
My gram told me to get an education and move far way not for money reasons (earnings potential), but for reasons of dignity and self respect and maybe less heavy handed bigotry. I think she knew from her experience how education opens doors and minds but the lack thereof closes door and keeps minds shut. I think she new I would not get a fair shot in that small town because of generations of stereo types that blocked opportunity for families like ours with our type history. She wanted more for me than what she had, but she didn't want me spoiled, ungrateful, or unkind either. I was told to do my best, to stand up for myself against prejudice and racism, and that no person is better than another person. Simple talk, paramount messages.
I kept my promise, earned a college degree, and moved far away. Gram was right, life was much different outside a little bitty town where everyone literally new each family name and each child was held responsible for the transgressions of the parents.
In today's political lingo, me and my gram would be called poor, lazy, scammers. My gram received welfare to provide for me. She was 65 when she took me in at 7 months old and had already raised two generations, a sum total of eleven children. I made number 12. She also got social security as a widow of a vet. Prior to my arrival, my gram cooked in a boarding house for 20 years. Where is there lazy in any of that?
We were not poor as much as we were surrounded by really poor attitudes. People who didn't want to help, they just wanted to judge a senior citizen and her great grand child that were trying to survive in an environment that was blatantly hostile.
Some people say to me that I do not like white people. That is not true. My gram was as white as they come and there is no human being I have loved more than my primary caregiver, my gram. What I do not like is what some white people do and say and why it's done or said, but that goes for any race.
My gram wanted me to get an education so I could say those things she didn't have the vocabulary to say and be taken serious. She wanted me to get an education so I would not be limited in opportunity. She wanted me to get an education so I could break the cycle of generational curses in our family. She wanted me to get an education so that I would at least have tools to competently maneuver unfair and unjust societal constraints. She wanted me to get an education so that I could meet them on their level with a message and an experience that says poor is not lazy and poor doesn't equate to lack of potential nor lack of character.
There are a lot more us us out here then you think, and with the continued poverty, education, and wage conversations on the national stage, we are listening and watching to see how many more of us will surface as these personal attacks and sweeping character judgments made against our elders (who got us though the oppression gate) and current folk experiencing poverty, continue to be asserted by republican representation as gamers of the system.
We grew up "poor" and we know how to survive it. We know the republican game and the system, and we all earned our credentials. Keep trash talking on poverty and inevitably it will be clear people of or from poverty are not so lazy after all. It will be most clear when you are not re elected and have to legitimately rethink your position.
This is my first diary. Constructive feedback welcome.