Insults and institutionalized racism

On the Playing at poverty post, Kai commented that Adam Shepard’s “experiment” was a “joke and an insult, with its ridiculously vain thesis, ‘Anyone could make it out of poverty — if you were as cool as me!’”

And that pretty much sums up how I felt after reading Shepard’s book. (Which, by the way, is poorly written.)

Because the reality is that there are lots of people in the lower fringes of the economy who are making it. Otherwise they’d all be dead. And most of us know somebody who has made it against all odds.

But the truth is that poverty has never been a game for the poor. When I think about Shepard’s stunt, I keep going back to that credit card that he kept in his back pocket for emergencies. Shepard didn’t really need that card–any problem he encountered that he didn’t feel like using his personal discipline and good attitude on could have been rectified by a call to mom or dad. That knowledge is a type of emotional security most homeless people never have.

But why did he have to carry that card? Why couldn’t he just rely on his good attitude? Take your pick: (a) he knows there can be some big trouble out there for folks with no available resources or (b) he doesn’t really trust his good attitude to bail him out or (c) he’s really a chicken sh*t.

In the real world, a lot of people can’t make a quick call to solve their problems. Or they know they could call, and the person on the other end would try to help. But they know only too well that any money that person sends them would literally be taking food out of somebody else’s mouth. How can you ask when you know somebody you love would choose to send you money rather than eat?

It’s funny, but I realize that Shepard has that same sort of belief that hard work will be rewarded that I did at one time. Only for me it manifested not in arrogance, but a profound sense of failure that caused a schism between what I had internalized from majority culture (poor people are lazy! looking for handouts!) and what I saw to be true. So I internalized my own poverty. But watching others created a crack in the wall.

I remember when my viewpoint about welfare changed markedly, and it had to do with an individual. An individual whom I loved and who had a bad hand dealt to her repeatedly throughout her life. And I (and she) realized that people saw her just as a lazy black single mother who didn’t want to work and who just wanted to collect food stamps. My friend, who grew up poor and who put herself through college and graduate school. Treated with scorn (I saw it with my own eyes) by clerks at the grocery store.

And one day in the grocery store, with a rage that was fueled by my own anger at myself, I turned and lashed out at a man who made a comment about a woman in front of me who was using food stamps. Her crime? She was buying a birthday cake along with her groceries. He had steak and shrimp and other expensive foods piled in his grocery cart. I don’t remember his face any more, but I remember staring at those packages of steaks and that huge bag of shrimp right before my head exploded.

And I realized some of the problem is that we have no f*cking compassion. And here I include myself. But this kind of crap will make you crazy if you can’t let it go.

This wasn’t the last time I called somebody out in the grocery store. But I bet a few of those people will think twice about spewing their judgmental crap about food stamp recipients again. But will they have learned anything? (And why the f*ck do people think I’m going to agree with them anyway? I hate that kind of chicken sh*t stuff where people say something loud enough to be overheard but they won’t say it to the person’s face.)

Once the wall has cracked, you can’t patch it. You can’t stop looking through the crack, because you see what was previously hidden.

When I was wading through Shepard’s trash, I realized that many of the people I know are remarkable. Remarkable especially since they overcame such odds and never once thought to pat themselves on the back for it. Remarkable because everybody just thought that was what you did. New immigrants who come with less than $25, don’t speak the language and make a living. People who hold two full-time jobs. Kids who leave the house at 17 and put themselves through college and graduate school. Parents who didn’t eat because they didn’t want their kids to go hungry.

Where are their stories? And where are the book deals for those who are struggling to get by?

Instead, the story that is making the rounds is one about a young man who grew up with every privilege and wanted to play at poverty. Because who knows better about poverty than people who are wealthy? Because those people can keep trying to patch the crack in the wall.

Otherwise it’s all just going to come tumbling down.