So, my husband posted on FB that they had just attended a job fair in Denver, and that they were having a hard time filling several very good positions that they have open, and how low unemployment in the area made it more difficult (CO ~6.8%). One of my family members (the RWNJ) posted that people just didn't want to get off their cushy welfare asses and have to lose all those sweet, sweet benefits. Said relative has also blocked me from seeing what she posts on her own wall because she can't stand to have anyone contradict her, which I am always willing to do. So then she sends me an email with the subject "WELFARE ABUSE: 32 years old Austin, TX welfare recipient says working is stupid. - Safeshare.TV"- the email and my response below the orange kosquiggle
I never know how to deal with my family. They are a total conundrum to me. I lived far from them for 18 years to avoid them. I'm very glad to be home, and I truly love them, but I don't fit in, to say the least. Except with my brother, who is a very middle of the road person.
Anyway, the email goes on:
"Odd thing... since the conversation we had last night on FB..... I got this today from a friend of your Dad's.
This is eerily familar to the conversations I have with the young women who are in our shop for community service and as your Dad reminded me ...my own nephew X who married a second generation welfare girl and they had three children right away and were fully ensconced into the welfare state of mind within a few years. They were on welfare /AFDC/EBT( food stamps) medicaid and X was paid a salary for staying home and taking care of his disabled wife (weighed 350 lbs in a wheelchair and on suicide watch and she was a "cutter") so they would not have to have Social services come in daily. What a sad life indeed....but it took him until just this last year to get out of it..... his oldest son is 23.....that is a long time on welfare and his son's and their partners with whom they have had children are all on welfare now too....it just continues with some people and my brother Jim never raised X to be on welfare....and to make it sadder.....what he did was walk away from his wife and boys in Washington he told us " it was depressing to watch her all day long" and move to California near all his family.. he now has a job at the age of 50.
Take a moment to listen to this radio listener who calls in to this show tell her side of the story.
I guess the part that is creepy is I hear almost word for word what she is saying....i want to know who is telling them all this stuff to do....it's like they have a handbook on the "In's & Outs of Welfare for Beginners"
Anyways that's my view from here!
love you and miss you both ! Be well
Love & hugs,"
Well, I don't question whether the personal story is true or not because if it's true, my experience tells me that it is not a common situation. But I googled the part about the radio caller who believes it is not worthwhile to get off the dole. All I found were rightwing websites repeating the same story, and one article that said she called back in and said some of it was made up. Nothing from any reputable news organization who followed up with the caller, nothing to alleviate my red flag that this whole thing is an odd hoax to stir up the masses of RWNJs.
Personally, I try to assume the best in people, unless they set my radar off, and then I wait for them to prove themselves one way or another. This relative is a self-proclaimed born-again Christian. I find her practice not to relate to any of the good parts of Christianity such as compassion or kindness, but to be very judgmental and racist. So this is what I sent to her.
"Hi RWNJ,
So it sounds as if you personally know one case where someone was really not willing to get off the dole, and you’ve had conversations with some of the people that are doing community service with you who have either expressed an unwillingness or inability to get their lives to be more self-sufficient.
I think that this is a very limited population (since you are specifically speaking to a population that is already way in the hole) from which to make a broad assumption, but I respect that this has been your experience. Have you ever asked these community service servers how they got into this situation and if they would prefer their lives be different? Can they even SEE their lives being different?
It’s one thing to be recalcitrant, but very different to not know any better way, and therefore not be able to see any better way. I try very hard to put myself in their shoes, and to think of situations in which I was totally lost on how to get myself to a better place. It often took help from someone outside of my situation, someone with a broader perspective. And sometime it required financial resources (such as a counselor) to get the assistance I needed. I call them my “lost in a paperbag” situations. To someone outside that paperbag, it’s very obvious how to get out. But from inside, all I can see is more paper.
Your assertion is that most people receiving government assistance don’t want to get away from the assistance. My experience shows me a different story. I’ve known people who had to use the social safety net (food stamps, unemployment), but they were mortified to have to do so, and got away from it as soon as they could. My mother used food stamps when we were younger and just moved back from Canada. It was a short time, but those food stamps allowed her to pay for groceries and have enough money for rent and doctors visits, school clothes, etc. Once her employment stabilized and became full time, she was glad to get away from the assistance. If assistance hadn’t been available, we would have had a much more difficult time, and had a much deeper hole to get out of.
There is a lot of data out there on actual welfare and other social program fraud, and it’s a lot smaller than most people wish to recognize. Yes, there are the recalcitrants. Those folks that are truly looking for the easy way out. But they are a small number. And as you saw how difficult it was for both you and Kelly to receive government assistance, the government does try very hard to weed out the recalcitrant – to the point of making it very difficult for people who do qualify to receive assistance. I personally think that we lose much more to corporate welfare than we ever will to individual safety programs, and there are budgetary numbers to support this belief.
Something that I have learned as the internet has developed is that if you want statistical data that is accurate, and not just an opinion or urban legend, go to websites ending in .gov or .edu – these are the sites where they post actual data, and not some person’s opinion that gets raging like a wildfire across the internet. Or go to an actual newspaper website where they are (for the most part) going to do some research and make sure the story is not some trope. This is something we actually teach as master gardener volunteers – there are a lot of people out there with an internet connection who will say that spraying beer on your plants will correct a multitude of ills, when there is absolutely no scientific proof that this benefits anyone but the people who make and sell beer. Go to a website where they actually research the ills of the plants, and you’ll get an education that will allow you to make a more informed decision based on replicable experiments.
Love,
Me"
Will it make a difference? Not likely at all. Did I express my disgust for her point of view? No. Did I express myself as well as I'd have liked, or with good, clear, technical arguments against her point of view? No as much as I would like.
What else can we do in the face of bigotry, without creating an argument? How worthwhile is it to have these discussions? Please don't think I stand for allowing abuse. In this case, it is a discussion, and not a situation. I absolutely would stand up for someone being abused if I were present and able. This is just a discussion with my family member. If it were an acquaintance, I would withdraw my friendship, but it's family, so I try to work with it.
I don't know. All I know is that when I'm in a good place, I can be kind in my discussions, and I guess that sometimes this is the best I can hope for.