On Being Poor.
On Being Poor II
Have you ever had a friend who, while in your car, rolls up his or her window because a homeless or "poor" looking person walks down the side of the street? Have you ever seen someone intentionally avoid a poor looking person for fear of being asked for some change? Have you ever had that one co-worker who absolutely insists that poor people are uneducated and talentless just because they don't have any work, or that they are some how inferior because their job isn't "prestigious"? How about someone who says that the food stamp program or social security be completely eliminated in the name of "smaller government"?
I have. Unfortunately, I have known all those people. All people who presume that because they have a job at the current moment that provides them a steady income, good benefits, and some semblance of sanity that they have the right to treat people less fortunate as if they are human rubbish. They assume that people who are struggling are lazy, insufficient, or deficit of some skill or talent that makes them employable. They assume that people needing government assistance are simply "milking" the system. They ask "Why should I have to pay for people sitting around all day???" They mock those of us who need assistance as "welfare queens" and "drug addicts" and then shout ignorantly into the wind "KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE"
All of those people completely blind to the fact that at any given moment their semblance of sanity, their façade of security could come crashing down around them. One layoff, one sickness, one broken limb, one missed payment, one cancer diagnosis could derail their entire world and send them into a financial death spiral that ends with the sheriff at the door telling them to get the hell out of their house because the bank foreclosed. They fail to realize that poverty is not a political issue that they can use to bludgeon their opponents over the head with. It is a human issue. Its a human issue because poverty, in this society, can happen to anyone.
So before you see someone paying for their groceries with a food stamp card and think "lazy", I want you to think about this: you are the 99% as well. You are most likely in the same precarious financial balancing act we are all in. It could be you out there on the streets. You are not protected just because you are employed now. One day you might find yourself in a DHS office asking for food stamps or an unemployment line thanking your lucky stars that the net was there to catch you. If you had your way now, would that same net be there to catch you when you fall?
We need to understand that as a society we have a responsibility to those who are less fortunate. We need to understand that our social safety nets are not something we can just slice and dice in the name of political expediency and "saving money". We need to understand that these programs provide a critical service that YOU YOURSELF might just need one day. Our government's budget doesn't work like a family's budget, where one can just cut the things he or she deems unnecessary. We have a duty, as a country with a moral compass, to those of us who are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. We have a duty to them because it could happen to any one of us, and you would WANT AND EXPECT the same rights and benefits that not ten minutes ago you were calling a waste of money.
So enough of the damn stereotypes. Enough of the mocking, and distrust. Enough with the "I am better than you" attitude. We are all the 99%.