The only good Indians I ever saw were dead. - General Philip Sheridan, US Army
As in all counterfactuals, wresting control of the narrative from the clutches of irony is a task best left to the monumentally unselfcounscious among us. This has been my experience in debates upon subjects as widely diverse as the benefits of particular methods for losing weight and the nobility of poverty endured in silence. I've had fat doctors tell me the best way to drop a few pounds, and comfortable middle-class mavens ready to drop some wisdom on me about how poor people should and should not behave. Mostly these pearls are received in the spirit they're given.
The only good poors are those not seen nor heard goes the implied refrain. Poverty is an indication of moral lapse, a lack of discipline at its most charitable, a genetic fault left uncorrected by Darwinian morality at its least. Poor folk are just not wiling to bear their burdens with proud stoicism like the rich and well-off do. Why can't they see that they inhabit the space God created for them in this world? Don't they know that how they grind it out in this life will reflect upon them in Heaven?
When I hear or read accounts of poor people who bear up under their burden with "pride" and beatific stoicism, as told to me by millionaires and comfortable latte-sipping bourgeoisie with renovated farm homes and trash-picking poor "friends," the narrative that springs to mind is the parable of the bon sauvage and its role in the great Diaspora of the American Indian. When a conquerer intends to dispossess an entire culture, it is useful to first idealize them. The attendant resentment that arises upon contact with the human reality of the inconvenient natives produces rationalizations that serve up such tasty morsels as Manifest Destiny and austerity measures alike.
Having a selection of obedient poors from which to produce counternarratives to the ills of poverty liberates the wealthy and near-wealthy from their obligations and guilt. If some poor people don't complain about the obvious systematic disenfranchisement and intergenerational nature of their plight, then why can't all of them be so accomodating? Why can't more of the downtrodden be like the good poors?
I discovered my passion against poverty during my third year at college. As the evidence piled up against the notion of this phenomena being a natural consequence of living in a society, as it became clear that the wealthiest nation on earth could implement measures that would virtually wipe out poverty in its citizenry in less than a decade if it but had the will, I became more and more committed to the notion that all men are created equal, but then they're deliberately fucked over by the system. The irony of my commitment to this idée fixe was that as I slowly slipped into poverty myself, I began to modify my position accordingly.
I am now poor.
I didn't start out that way, and my sinking socio-economic position isn't a result of some catastrophic upheaval in my life. I have a full-time government job and I've lived in the same home for 15 years. But as my wages stagnated, as inflation raised the cost of subsisting over my head, I saw my credit card balances creeping up as the bills sucked up more and more of my paycheck and left less and less for gas, food, school clothes for the kids, copays, toilet paper, and on and on and on. The monthly minimum payment on the credit cards kept going up, which only accelerated the process, and I soon began to see bankruptcy on the horizon.
Again, Full. Time. Job. College educated. Yeah.
My house is falling apart, and we can't fix it up for lack of funds. Even if we could, we can't sell it because the market is shit and we wouldn't get enough from the principal to pay for the moveout. I applied for food stamps last year for the first time in my life, and the monthly trip to the grocery store is an exercise in shame, frustration, and barely pent up rage. I'm torn between keeping my eyes on the ground where they belong and challenging everyone around me to say out loud what I know they're thinking when they see our QUEST Card.
My kids get free lunch at school, hand-me-down clothes from our friends, Medicaid from the State. Our power bill is leveled and partially subsidized. I don't pay Federal income tax, and I get a big ol' check at tax time because of the Child Tax Credit. That pays for the property tax on our place. This is my life. Without this help, I would be homeless. No shit.
So I guess I'm not one of the good poors. I'm apparently setting a bad example by demanding that this society keep me from slipping all the way down. As I sunk from the middle-class apex of my earning years into the hanging on by teeth and toenails existence in which I currently reside, I refuse to blame myself. I do not accept personal responsibility for what has happened to me. And why should I?
I put myself through college, going to class full time while also working full time on the night shift at Safeway. 16 hour days for 4 years. I'm not lazy. I got good grades and was accepted into graduate seminars while I was an undergrad because I'm dedicated and I love learning. I have a 140 IQ. I'm not stupid. I'm not stupid, I'm not lazy, I didn't make bad choices, I didn't take on more debt than I could support, and I'm not going to fucking apologize for the way that the world is passing me by.
I am the other half, goddammit, and just as it's not my fault that I can't levitate by my bootstraps, it's not your virtue that keeps you and your finances in the black, middle-class America. It's dumb luck. And like all luck, it's going to come to an end for a lot of you. Because I was lucky once, and I lived well and enjoyed life once. Until I wasn't, until I didn't.
Anyways, we're all just a bunch of selfish assholes trying to get by without letting anyone else see us cry. There are no good poors, there are no bad poors, there are just a whole lot of poors. So for you, a song.