From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth; from the laziness that is content with half-truths; from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth – oh God of Truth deliver us!— Unknown
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Why Do We Hate Poor People?

Why is it that when we encounter poor or homeless people they make us cringe?

Why do we want to make them disappear into shelters or remove them out of our sights?

Since the Reagan revolution we have instead of being at war against poverty, we have been at war with poor people.

They litter our streets like so many abandoned cars at a salvage yard.

Why has it been so easy to sell the false narrative that people are poor by choice and that if they would just work harder they wouldn’t be poor?

I think that our reactions to the poor says more about who we are than who they are. Let’s face it there have been poor people throughout recorded history, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is not that there are poor people, but that there are poor people we could help and don’t.

The reason I think we hate poor people is that rather than reminding of us of the blessings we have received, they instead remind us of our vulnerabilities and our insecurities.

They remind so many of us that we are only one missed paycheck or one serious health issue away from their lot and it scares the hell out of us.

We need so badly to believe that this could never happen to us, that we are so insulated from them and their fate that it could never be our fate.

When the reality is too frightening to consider we create these illusions to placate ourselves.

The greatest illusion is that we live in a society that if anyone is willing to work hard enough they can overcome the poverty of their birth.

We regale ourselves with these fables of rags to riches, never considering the reality of these tales.

The reality is a far cry from the false narratives being maintained by those who would keep us ignorant of the truth.

We are constantly fed the fairy-tale of the poor kid who signs a million-dollar sports contract, the million-dollar recording contract, or the Ivy League scholarship.

And for those who have desires that steer towards more iniquitous pursuits we even have the “gangster” or drug dealer chronicles. In other words there is money and wealth to be had by all except the most slothful of our fellow citizens.

How prevalent are these scenarios in modern America?

The truth is that very little has changed for poor people, the majority of children born into poverty will remain in poverty. How can they not?

They are provided with in many cases inferior homes, schools, and sometimes parents. The deck is stacked against them from the moment they take their first breath.

Sure we occasionally give a few dollars here and there with moral superiority and discuss how unfortunate those people are.

All the while hoping they would just disappear and not remind us of how tenuous our hold on the American Dream is.

Not only do they remind us of our perilous situations they also remind us of our conspicuous consumption and how truly far we have bought and sold the lie of more is better.

The truth of this is in the fact that many of us believe that today’s poor are not really poor.

We look at poverty in the third world and convince ourselves that those are truly poor people, the ones here are just whiners.