Some links on race and class

some-links-on-race-and-class

Hey you all. Been a while eh? Work and school have pulled me under, so I am a bit busy. However, have a few links:

via: jhameia poor people aren’t supposed to want nice things

I don’t know if you guys received the memo; but poor people aren’t supposed to want nice things.

All rags-to-riches (or rags-to-bitches, if you want to get all Boondocks about it) stories start with people who are poor but industrious. Tales of kids eating cigarette ash sandwiches to survive. Tales of people saving mustard packets so they have food that stretches through the whole year. Bonus points if your parent proudly refuses government help, or if you suffer through and survive a vitamin deficiency. You’re a rock star if you live many years out on the streets and still pull down a 4.0+ GPA. You have done poverty correctly.MORE

nonstressed thoughts about eminem and rihanna

make what you will of the following.

* if you are going to say that the video “glamorizes” abuse/violence, you better have a better reason for saying that than the two lead actors are hot. news flash: workingclass/poor people can be and are hot.

* people in violent relationships have sex. and it is often really really fucking amazingly hot.MORE

What ghetto really means

A look at Urban Dictionary reveals the most popular definitions of “ghetto” invoke not only predominately black, poor, urban areas, but also ideas of “inferior quality.” (Or, specifically, the inferior quality of the culture of poor, black, urban folk.) One definition suggests the word means “jury-rigged” or “half-assed.” Another reads like a hackneyed bit from BET’s Comic View, describing “ghetto” as “Yelling at your boo in the middle of the street…Dressing for work like you are going to the club…Wearing house slippers outside the house…Flashing money you don’t have instead of making your money last…Running from the cops for no reseaon just to see if they can catch you” Some synonyms offered for “ghetto,” based on reader-submitted definitions: hood, black, gangsta, nigger, poor, nigga, rap, slang, cool, urban, thug, drugs, cheap, stupid, bitch, pimp, dirty, slut, ugly…

You get the picture, yes?

When Paris Hilton proclaimed a rusty, old truck “so ghetto” on an episode of The Simple Life, she was using language loaded with race and class-related meaning. So, too, was Mary Mitchell, an African American columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, who sparked controversy last month when she debuted a new term for bad parenting: “ghetto parenting.”MORE

New York and California back Jim Crow Era Farm Worker Laws

 

Two bills that would have given farmworkers the most basic of labor protections — overtime pay and one day of rest a week — were recently defeated in New York and California.

It was a disappointing series of events, and unfortunately, only the latest episode in over a century of our country’s shameful treatment of farmworkers.

Farmworker regulations have stayed stubbornly mired in the racism of the Jim Crow era for generations — decades in which black and brown farmworkers have toiled in the most backbreaking, low-paying jobs in America imaginable. Meanwhile, white farmers and politicians have consistently fought to keep those workers sweating in the fields seven days a week — for pay that would be illegally low for any other workers in this country.

This is history that’s rarely taught, so here’s a quick primer: In the 1930s, Southern politicians pushed President Roosevelt to modify New Deal legislation to exclude black farmworkers from basic wage and hour laws. Southern congressmen hoped to preserve the race-based plantation system while netting profits for their farm-owning friends. Accordingly, since 1938, farmworkers have been exempt from the overtime pay and days off that are enjoyed by literally every other worker in America.MORE

Sympathy Grifting, the intersection of race, gender and fraud

Kirilow is young, thin, sweet-faced and white: over the year that she convinced people to donate money to her cancer cause, she was given trips to Disneyworld and took a paradise trip to Australia; she is alternately described as an angel and a princess.

When I first saw this news case, I thought to myself (yes, rather cynically): there is no way that anyone other than a young, attractive, normative person could have pulled this off. If Kirilow had been—for example—fat, in her 30s, plain-looking and homeless, few would’ve given her the time of day. Much of Kirilow’s success seems attributed to the fact that she easily roused pity with her little lost girl story and her brave smile. Kirilow embodied a version of white womanhood that we want to believe in (or at least we’ve been socially conditioned to embrace it): pretty, plucky, determined, and in need of rescue.

Kirilow is a prime example of a sympathy grifter: a grifter who uses racist/sexist/classist/etc beliefs in their favor, to get money, affection and attention, or to (literally) get away with murder.MORE

The Right’s long racist history of calling Moms criminals (I am having trouble accessing this site, so can’t give a preview.)

BP dumping oil waste in communities of color, study finds I am having trouble accessing this site, so can’t give a preview)

HUD housing policy conference includes no affordable housing advocates

The Obama administration will prove that they have a plan to do something about the housing crisis by holding a housing conference next week, in DC. The event, called the “Conference on the Future of Housing Finance,” has been organized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury Department. Panelists include… well, a bunch of economists, finance industry representatives, bank officials, think tankers, and an academic or two. Not included: Any actual consumer advocates or community group representatives.

We’ve got PIMCO, Wells Fargo, the goddamn American Enterprise Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, Moody’s, and Bank of America. But:

 

“Apparently being a community organizer qualifies you to be president, but it’s not good enough to be part of HUD and Treasury’s think tank on housing,” said [National Community Reinvestment Coalition] chief executive John Taylor, whose group works with hundreds of community organizations to promote access to financial services for low- and middle-income people.

MORE

Birthright citizenship is a thinly veiled attack on Immigrant mothers

This is also an ugly strategy fueled by sexism and racism. It taps into a long history of population control—government efforts to curb growth among disfavored populations. During slavery, the children slaveowners sired with their slaves were deemed slaves themselves who could be sold as chattel, thereby increasing the wealth of the owner rather than the size of his family. Chinese women in the 1800s were labeled prostitutes and denied visas to join their husbands who labored on our railroads. And black women, Native American women, and Latinas were routinely sterilized either without their knowledge or without their consent as recently as the 1970s.MORE

Women of color and welfare

Books.

Storming Ceasars Palace: How black mothers fought their own war on poverty

Thinking Class: Sketches from a cultural worker

Policing Race, Policing Gender, Policing Sex

Detroit: I do mind dying

Highway Robbery: Transportation racism and routes to equity

Some links on race and class -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

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35 Responses to Some links on race and class

  1. 1
    RonF says:

    but poor people aren’t supposed to want nice things.

    I don’t know where this come from. I read the post, mind you. But the last time I checked, poor people are very definitely supposed to want nice things. In fact, that’s one of the major incentives for poor people to do what it takes to no longer be poor.

    However, if you take what little disposable income you have and buy sushi, you are doing wrong. Poor people do not want things like smartphones (you’re poor; who are you calling on a smartphone?), televisions (you’re poor; what do you need entertainment for?), nice cars (why wouldn’t you get a modest car to get around when you’re poor), or delicious food (do you know how much ramen you could have bought for the cost of that scone?)

    The rest of the post doesn’t seem to match up with the title. See, as I read through the post, what I see are not examples of poor people wanting nice things. I see examples of poor people buying nice things. The question I then ask is, are these poor people using money that they need to buy essential things (e.g., rent) to buy non-essential things instead, and then expecting to get the money to pay for these essential things from me? Because if they’re not, then fine – I don’t give a rip what they spend their money on. But if they are, what they spent their own money on before they are given my money becomes my business.

  2. 2
    RonF says:

    Birthright Citizenship Debate Is a Thinly Veiled Attack on Immigrant Mothers

    Actually, it’s an attack on people who are here illegally. It is not an attack on people who are here legally. So using the comprehensive term “immigrant” when the actual object of the law is a subset thereof is incorrect.

    While the examples cited of people who are here legally and were acted upon by mistake are disturbing and unjust, a great many laws on the books have led to examples of people being mistreated. You’d have a hard time citing laws that weren’t applied to innocent people by mistake. That doesn’t mean we get rid of those laws, it means we improve the mechanisms by which they are enforced.

  3. 3
    Jay says:

    “The question I then ask is, are these poor people using money that they need to buy essential things (e.g., rent) to buy non-essential things instead, and then expecting to get the money to pay for these essential things from me?”

    There’s definitely a psychological component to consumption habits, and it can play out across generations – being raised in a poor home is very emotionally damaging, and affects the way that people view money and handle their finances.

    A working-class poor person with no promise of health care or employment security; who works as a replaceable thing in a workplace that ignores human needs; who performs the kinds of repetitive, physically damaging activities required by entry-level jobs – is going to suffer from it.

    Some poor people purchase “luxury” items that are immediately obtainable because they know they have no long-term security, and they simply cannot see a way to achieve that long-term security. As clear as it may be to you what items are “essential” and what items are “luxury”, the fact is that people have emotional and psychological needs in excess of physical survival – and they are struggling to fulfill those needs too.

  4. 4
    RonF says:

    Regarding sympathy grifting – while grifting wasn’t involved, there was a bit of soul-searching in the Chicago media a while back that explored the phenomena that while a certain number of little kids seem to go missing every year in the Chicago area, the ones that made the MSM seemed to be a) white, b) female and c) cute. To their credit, the Chicago media seems to do a lot better job of covering missing kids who are black and hispanic now.

  5. 5
    Sebastian says:

    [edited] Just remembered that there is a new “Sebastian” who posts more frequently. I’m the old Sebastian, I’ll post as Sebastian H in the future. [/edit]

    “if you are going to say that the video “glamorizes” abuse/violence, you better have a better reason for saying that than the two lead actors are hot. news flash: workingclass/poor people can be and are hot.”

    The link doesn’t work (it says forbidden), so I can’t tell the context, but I certainly think that there are all sorts of good arguments in support of the idea that the video glamorizes abuse/violence.

    I should probably add a trigger warning. “Love the Way you Lie” definitely has scenes of domestic abuse, and talking about the song definitely involves talking about it.

    The hook, sung by Rhianna is “Just gonna stand there; And watch me burn; But that’s alright; Because I like the way it hurts; Just gonna stand there
    and hear me cry; But that’s alright because I love the way you lie”

    Which is a disturbing, though maybe accurate for some, depiction of what goes on in some (I say some) abuse victims minds at some point. But I would note the producers of the song/video have chosen their point of entry into the abused woman’s mind very carefully. It isn’t the point of intense fear, or extreme hopelessness.

    Then we have Eminem’s verses. The early ones suggest that he might truly wrestle with the wrongness of being an abuser. I’m not going to quote it all, but I’d say that the gist of that portion is summed up in: “Cause when it’s going good; It’s going great; I’m Superman; With the wind in his bag; She’s Lois Lane; But when it’s bad; It’s awful; I feel so ashamed; I snap; Who’s that dude; I don’t even know his name; I laid hands on her; I’ll never stoop so low again; I guess I don’t know my own strength”

    The other early portions portray a man out of control of his own emotions, and sometimes regretful, sometimes not. Which is I suppose disturbing though probably accurate.

    But how does the song end? How does he wrap it up?

    “Now I know we said things; Did things; That we didn’t mean; And we fall back
    Into the same patterns; Same routine; But your temper’s just as bad; As mine is; You’re the same as me; But when it comes to love; You’re just as blinded; Baby please come back; It wasn’t you baby it was me; Maybe our relationship
    Isn’t as crazy as it seems; Maybe that’s what happens; When a tornado meets a volcano; All I know is; I love you too much; To walk away though; Come inside; Pick up your bags off the sidewalk; Don’t you hear sincerity; In my voice when I talk; Told you this is my fault; Look me in the eyeball; Next time I’m pissed; I’ll aim my fist At the dry wall; Next time There will be no next time I apologize; Even though I know it’s lies; I’m tired of the games; I just want her back; I know I’m a liar; If she ever tries to fucking leave again I’mma tie her to the bed; And set the house on fire”

    Even giving Eminem the maximum benefit of the doubt for artistic portrayal and trying to accurately depict something, it is hard to be ok with a song that wrestles through the thoughts of a domestic abuser who portrays himself as wracked with guilt, while the song still ends up at that point. To have the song *start* there and end up somewhere else, would potentially be different. But having it end there with the threat to literally burn her alive, with the hook going into Rhianna’s “Stand there and watch me burn, but that’s alright because I like the way it hurts” is something else.

    The video ends with the burning house, and the lovers/abuser/victim kissing in front of it, then a picture of the victim wreathed in flames but looking vaguely ecstatic, and then a flash to them holding each other securely in bed.

    There are certainly mixed messages all over the song and video, but a large component of it really does seem to glamorize domestic violence, above and beyond the depictions of hot sex by lower class people in the middle of it.

    The song is compelling, the video is mesmerizing, but yes it does seem to glamorize domestic violence.

  6. 6
    Silenced is Foo says:

    Now I want to see this video. It seems like every other piece of pop-culture about abuse is either the swaggering pimp-hand jokes or cartoonish Dudley-Do-Right-Esque stories of moustache-twirling monsters smashing up poor defenseless virgins.

  7. 7
    mythago says:

    But the last time I checked, poor people are very definitely supposed to want nice things.

    RonF – poor people are supposed to want to become middle-class or wealthier. Once they have done that, they are allowed to want nice things.

    But the arguments you’re making are exactly those addressed by the essay: Poor people should not take any windfalls or nest eggs or scraped together pennies and expose themselves to luxuries. After all, isn’t that just a brutal reminder of how poor they are any other time? Why not just face the fact that poor is what you are, poor is what you shall be, and poor means that you cannot have nice things?

    The question I ask is, is buying a TV really the make-or-break between the poor people in question rising out of poverty instead of having to use the Earned Income Credit? And, is it really that much of a burden on my taxes for a poor person to buy a birthday cake for their kid with their food stamps?

    Frankly, I’m more pissed-off than in my state, the counties relying most on taxes are conservative and represented by Republicans who claim to want to cut taxes and spending (but of course, are careful to bring home the bacon for their voters). No sucking off the public tit, unless it’s a Democratic tit.

  8. 8
    Kai Jones says:

    being raised in a poor home is very emotionally damaging, and affects the way that people view money and handle their finances.

    Thank you for that gratuitous insult. I am not damaged and I have no interest in being patronized by people who think that just because I grew up in a poor home, I didn’t learn to view money and handle finances in the approved middle-class way. I protest your attempt to other me.

  9. 9
    Thene says:

    Ways of viewing and handling money vary greatly from person to person and I’d be really interested to know if there’s any research that shows quantifiable differences in financial attitude & behaviour linked to class/income level in childhood. If you do not know of such research, Ron, kindly don’t pretend that you do.

    …Also, seeing as it’s something you think is very emotionally damaging, what are you doing to prevent child poverty? How are you politically supporting an end to child poverty?

  10. 10
    nobody.really says:

    Ways of viewing and handling money vary greatly from person to person and I’d be really interested to know if there’s any research that shows quantifiable differences in financial attitude & behaviour linked to class/income level in childhood. If you do not know of such research, Ron, kindly don’t pretend that you do.

    Good advise for us all, not just Ron. That said, did Ron claim to have some research linking financial attitudes and behavior to class/income levels in childhood?

    Also, seeing as it’s something you think is very emotionally damaging, what are you doing to prevent child poverty? How are you politically supporting an end to child poverty?

    Is this remark perhaps directed to Jay?

  11. 11
    Thene says:

    Yes, mybad – my whole comment was in response to Jay #3. My apologies to Ron.

  12. 12
    RonF says:

    I was wondering WTF you were talking about. No problem, Thene. I’ve misdirected too many comments enough myself to have a right to get excited when someone else does it to me.

    mythago:

    RonF – poor people are supposed to want to become middle-class or wealthier. Once they have done that, they are allowed to want nice things.

    I see it the other way around. The desire for better material goods/healthcare/housing/food/etc. is what motivates people to get better education/training and work harder and longer in order to move up to the economic point where they can afford those things.

    The question I ask is, is buying a TV really the make-or-break between the poor people in question rising out of poverty instead of having to use the Earned Income Credit? And, is it really that much of a burden on my taxes for a poor person to buy a birthday cake for their kid with their food stamps?

    For a given incident, no. Now, is that the occasional incident for a given person or a pattern of buying $150 pairs of gym shoes for all the kids (and themselves), etc.? If it’s a pattern and a widespread one, then yes; it does materially affect one’s taxes, taxes that have to be shared with police and fire protection, fixing the roads, etc. – as well as providing essentials to those people who actually do economize as much as they can. It sure as hell isn’t fair to the person who needs help and who is buying $30/pair sneakers for their kids and themselves.

    Frankly, I’m more pissed-off than in my state, the counties relying most on taxes are conservative and represented by Republicans who claim to want to cut taxes and spending (but of course, are careful to bring home the bacon for their voters). No sucking off the public tit, unless it’s a Democratic tit.

    One reason for why the Tea Party Movement rose. Lots of people are seeing some strong similarities between the Republican and the Democratic parties in how they regard “sucking off the public tit”. Once again – those districts may vote Republican, but Republican != conservative.

  13. 13
    mythago says:

    Ron @12 – you’re confusing internal motivation (“I want to be middle-class, then I’ll have nice things”) with the shaming referred to in the initial post (“How dare you say you want those nice things, you tax-leeching poor person”).

    And ‘for a given incident’ is the problem. People ranting about Cadillac-driving welfare queens are not looking at an individual and accurately assessing whether the poor person having something nice is acting irresponsibly with their money as part of a large pattern of entitlement and misuse of tax dollars. They’re assuming that poor person with nice things = greedy tax leech.

    Re the Republican districts, I’m talking about districts represented by people who are Republicans and rant about tax-and-spend Democrats and vote against social spending programs from which they don’t directly benefit. But they sure don’t turn away relief money that helps their county.

  14. 14
    Sebastian H says:

    “People ranting about Cadillac-driving welfare queens are not looking at an individual and accurately assessing whether the poor person having something nice is acting irresponsibly with their money as part of a large pattern of entitlement and misuse of tax dollars. They’re assuming that poor person with nice things = greedy tax leech.”

    Isn’t it kind of a question of which nice things? A TV may or may not be a good example of acting irresponsibly, but a Cadillac almost certainly is.

  15. 15
    mythago says:

    No, it isn’t kind of a question of which nice things; it’s a question of looking at a data point (poor person owns/wants a consumer good) and making a huge pattern of assumptions about that person’s fiscal responsibility, spending habits, choices, work ethic and reliance on tax dollars.

    It’s classism, not a neutral analysis of how a particular individual might be better off if s/he redirected certain kinds of spending. And, as somebody has already pointed out, many poor people wouldn’t be hugely better off. $150 for a single pair of sneakers is not the make-or-break between going to college or not.

  16. 16
    Sebastian says:

    Just remembered that there is a new “Sebastian” who posts more frequently. I’m the old Sebastian, I’ll post as Sebastian H in the future.

    I am the ‘new’ Sebastian, but I am not so new. About one year ago, months after I had first wandered in, I saw a post of yours, and did not know who had been first. I then suggested that whoever came second changes his handle. I am still ready to do so if you posted before I first did… which it seems you had.

  17. 17
    RonF says:

    Ron @12 – you’re confusing internal motivation (“I want to be middle-class, then I’ll have nice things”) with the shaming referred to in the initial post (“How dare you say you want those nice things, you tax-leeching poor person”).

    But that goes back to my point. The original poster in the referenced blog is claiming that (some unnamed group of) people shame poor people for wanting nice things. I’m saying that this premise is incorrect. And since what the author then describes is not poor people expressing a desire for nice things but actually purchasing those nice things, he or she is not offering any support for the premise. Whether this is deliberate misdirection, bad writing, or a lack of understanding of the difference between desire and acting to fufill a desire I cannot say.

    If anything, what is being offered is much closer to support for my premise, which is that what is viewed negatively is poor people buying nice things when they are receiving tax dollars to support their requirements for necessities and while other poor people are in fact forgoing the purchase of nice things to ensure the provision of necessities for themselves and their families.

    Stand outside the store window and say “Boy, I’d love to have that high-def TV to watch the Bears on.” and I’ve got no problem. That’s saying “I want nice things.” Go and buy that TV and then either take tax dollars to pay the rent or let the rent go unpaid and I think shaming is in order.

    Re the Republican districts, I’m talking about districts represented by people who are Republicans and rant about tax-and-spend Democrats and vote against social spending programs from which they don’t directly benefit. But they sure don’t turn away relief money that helps their county.

    Fair enough. Now, how long do you think it would take me to find Democratic Congresscritters who rant about Republican-supported corporate welfare but are only too happy to sponsor breaks for corporations with HQ or facilities in their districts?

  18. 18
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I have lurked for a while and I am pretty positive that there have been plenty of claims that many poor people can in no way afford $150 for rent or food or condoms or health care or much else. So I’m not sure why people in this thread are now, apparently, taking the position that a hypothetical $150 pair of sneakers is not a big expense.

    When it comes to public presentation I think RonF is correct. people don’t want to see the recipients of government aid spending money on “luxuries,” whatever those are.

    But I think that the underlying point of the OP (though not made well here) is also correct, in that some segment of non-poor people are going to classify almost anything as a “luxury.” And because those non-poor people don’t know shit about the people they are judging, they can’t distinguish between
    “Poor person who takes tax dollars for food and housing, but who spends $1000/year on imported French apricot nectar”
    and
    “Poor person who is buying their kid a $4 bottle of apricot nectar because they’ve never tasted an apricot before and it’s all they can afford for the kid’s birthday.”

    Many people would have a problem with the first example, and that seems at least somewhat justified. Most people (I hope) would not have a problem with the second example.

    The question is: Why is a person who looks or acts poor is assumed to be example #1 and not #2?

  19. 19
    mythago says:

    Fair enough. Now, how long do you think it would take me to find Democratic Congresscritters who rant about Republican-supported corporate welfare but are only too happy to sponsor breaks for corporations with HQ or facilities in their districts?

    Sorry, is this the ‘two wrongs make a right’ theory? I’m happy to scream at them too. However, they’re not the one using my tax dollars to pay for their stop signs and then whining about poor children getting free school lunches.

    Re your first paragraph, I’m saying that premise is correct, based on both personal observation and the writer’s experience. I mean, look at the assumptions in your second paragraph:
    1) Poor people who have nice things must be receiving tax subsidies for necessities.
    2) Poor people who have any nice things and receive tax subsidies are a non-overlapping set with poor people who forego any nice things.

  20. 20
    Sebastian H says:

    “No, it isn’t kind of a question of which nice things; it’s a question of looking at a data point (poor person owns/wants a consumer good) and making a huge pattern of assumptions about that person’s fiscal responsibility, spending habits, choices, work ethic and reliance on tax dollars.

    It’s classism, not a neutral analysis of how a particular individual might be better off if s/he redirected certain kinds of spending. ”

    But some data points are bigger than others. A Cadillac can represent a multi-year commitment of more than many people’s annual salary. $150 shoes aren’t. If I made a huge assumption based on the shoes, I’d be guilty of classism. If I make the same pattern of assumptions on the Cadillac purchased by someone making less than $30,000 per year, I’m much more likely to be identifying an actual case where someone would be better off if s/he redirected his/her spending. My likelihood of being wrong in the assumption is much lower if I’m judging it on the Cadillac than on the shoes, and even more so a jar of apricot jam.

    The thing is that there is a range. And at a sufficiently low end of the range, your criticism is well taken. But not for the entire range. There is a balance, and you seem to want to say that there isn’t a balance at all.

    Also, don’t we have similar classist issues when talking about luxuries that the rich don’t really ‘need’? If you really believed that you can’t talk about the wastefulness of getting a Cadillac, shouldn’t you also be hands off on the corporate jet?

  21. 21
    Sebastian H says:

    To the other Sebastian. I’ve been around here about 4 or 5 years, but you’ve been posting enough to get your own reputation such that it wouldn’t be fair to have you change. I’m happy with Sebastian H, just needed to be sure to remember.

  22. 22
    Jake Squid says:

    I knew a poor person who bought a Cadillac. This was in the early ’80s. He won the numbers one week and it was enough to buy a Cadillac. Other than owning a Cadillac, his lifestyle didn’t change one bit. He still spent most of his time playing dominoes out on the sidewalk with his friends. It’s just that he did it while showing off his prized possession which was always parked about 15 feet away.

    I’m sure that he’s exactly the guy that people are shaming for wanting/owning nice things while being poor. Would taking the money that he spent on the Cadillac and using it to pay for food and rent have lifted him out of poverty? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong. What it did unquestionably do is improve his life. What a terrible, terrible thing for the poor to do.

  23. 23
    mythago says:

    Sebastian H @20: While some data points are bigger than others, we’re still talking about extrapolating a whole set of assumptions from one data point.

  24. 24
    Sebastian H says:

    Sure. But if the main thing you knew about someone was that they supported the Iraq war all the way until now, wouldn’t you be willing to extrapolate a whole set of assumptions about their fitness to judge the suitability of bombing to keep Iraq from going nuclear? Even if we refused to tell you anything else about them? One data point can be plenty.

  25. 25
    mythago says:

    The data point we’re talking about here is “a poor person owning a nice thing”. Please don’t derail.

  26. 26
    Sebastian H says:

    The data point you’re decrying is buying a Cadillac. Buying a nice thing in the abstract is great. Hell, buying a large number of nice things in the abstract is fine. But a Cadillac isn’t just ‘a’ nice thing. If it represents nearly one of your annual income (or even worse multiples of), it is probably a sufficient data point.

    Buying high quality jam for someone’s birthday–clearly ok.

    Buying status-shoes for your 14 year old–probably a bad decision but not a game breaker.

    Having your 14 year old work at a job to buy his own status-shoes–probably a great parenting technique.

    Buying a Cadillac when you’re poor–for almost all cases a really really bad decision, which probably suggests that there are other really bad decisions lurking around.

    It is a matter of scale. You can’t just dismiss the large scale items because you don’t approve of how the small scale items sometimes get used.

    The Iraq case isn’t a derail to debate the worth of the Iraq war. If I was trying to have a discussion defending it, that would be a derail. It is an illustration of the fact that even you almost certainly believe that some really bad decisions are worth strongly considering even if they are the only data point you have.

  27. 27
    mythago says:

    The data point you’re decrying is buying a Cadillac.

    No. The data point I’m decrying is “poor person is observed to have a nice thing”.

    In terms of a Cadillac, the person observing this doesn’t know if the poor person won it in a raffle, inherited it almost-new from a relative who did spend unwisely and died shortly after, or bought the Cadillac with money that was supposed to pay their share of their Section 8 rent.

    Because the original article isn’t asking ‘is it wise for a poor person to run out and buy a Cadillac?’ It’s talking about shaming poor people for wanting, and having, nice things because they are poor, and not because they took money for their kid’s asthma treatment and blew it on an iPod.

    By the way, re your shoe data points – do you have kids? Because status shoes may well help a poor kid fit in instead of being bullied and harassed, and “work to buy his own shoes” is not so fabulous if it means the kid is falling asleep in class because, after homework and job, he has time for four hours of sleep. Just a thought.

  28. Pingback: Trash, Bootstraps, and the Undeserving Poor | Alas, a blog

  29. 28
    vesta44 says:

    I come from a lower middle class family, both my parents worked to support themselves and my brother and me. So I grew up with having nice things, but not expensive things, we couldn’t afford expensive things.
    I left home at 18 and worked until I got pregnant with my son. After I had him, I went back to work. When my son was little (this was 30-some years ago), I had been working and gotten some nice things – a decent stereo, bought fabric on sale and made a lot of clothing for myself, my parents gave me a color TV. I got laid off and couldn’t find another job when my unemployment ran out and had to go on welfare. Now, back then, case workers did home visits. My caseworker came to do a home visit, unannounced (as was usual), and I had just finished doing my laundry (my parents had also given me their old washer and dryer) so all of my knit pants/tops were hanging to dry where she could see them. She had the nerve to tell me that I had too many clothes for someone who was on welfare, and that I didn’t need my color TV or my stereo. Didn’t matter to her that some of those things had been given to me, and some of them I had gotten when I was working and could afford them. I was now on welfare and was therefore poor white trash (in her eyes) and didn’t deserve to have anything nice. She said I should sell all those things and use the money to pay bills. Yeah, like selling my clothing would have brought in enough money to pay bills for more than maybe a week or two, and selling a used TV and stereo would have brought in much more. Even back then I didn’t put up with BS – I told her that what I had for personal belongings was none of her business, it wasn’t her money or the government’s money that had paid for any of it, I wasn’t poor white trash just because I happened to need help for a while, and if she didn’t like it, tough shit. I told her to do her paperwork and get the hell out of my house. We had an adversarial relationship from then on, but every time she made a decision that adversely affected me or my son, I appealed her decisions, and 95% of the time, I won. Eventually, I got off welfare and went back to work, but I learned not to judge people just because they don’t have a lot of money or possessions (been there done that). So, if poor people want to spend what little money they have and buy themselves something nice, I’m sure as hell not going to tell them they can’t do it. It’s a damned bleak existence when you’re poor, and if having something nice to look at/wear/sit on/drive/whatever makes that existence a little less bleak, then maybe that’s not wrong or bad.

  30. 29
    Erin S. says:

    The people being hurt by the kneejerk “welfare queen ripping off the hard working taxpayer to buy a luxury car” statements are NOT in fact the poor people who actually have luxury cars. Because they are so few, in comparison to the sheer number of people living in poverty, as to almost become something else entirely.

    Yet every time the topic of poverty comes up, someone comes up with some variation on “you wouldn’t have trouble buying food/paying rent if you didn’t waste money on cars/cellphones/eating out/fancy clothes”. I have been given that lecture so many times I could recite it in my sleep.

    As if every single person living below the poverty line has even one of those things much less all. I certainly don’t, and never have. Yet I get accused of it often enough that if I had a penny for every time that comment has been made about me I would certainly have at least three of them if not all four by now.

    Another thing that is being overlooked… you can’t tell just by looking at a random person with a luxury car if they are even poor AT ALL much less how they got that car. Maybe they went without other luxuries for a long time and saved up to buy their dream car. Maybe they’re rich but still choose to live in the same community they grew up in and just not advertise the fact. And you can’t tell if the clean cut lady in her fancy $200 business suit downtown isn’t secretly living a life of extreme poverty and wearing a suit donated to a church outreach program or thrift shop in a desperate attempt to get a secretarial job.

    The problem isn’t people who own or want nice things.

    The problem is people who think that since maybe $0.50 of their taxes went to that specific person it gives them a right to order them around like indentured servants.

  31. 30
    Ben Burgis says:

    Ron F.,

    “Actually, it’s an attack on people who are here illegally. It is not an attack on people who are here legally.”

    Um…..actually, no.

    Attacks on birthright citizenship are *explicitly* and *by definition* attacks on people who are here *legally.* The proposal–to repeal the amendment that made freed slaves equal citizens, in order to strip millions of American citizens who have never lived anywhere else of their citizenship, in retribution for the actions of their parents–is so breathtakingly evil and racist that it should be a source of deep national shame that anyone in the country can advocate this view in polite company without being universally shunned thereafter.

  32. 31
    La Lubu says:

    vesta44, that attitude is familiar to me, too. After my daughter was born, I had a few rounds of on-again, off-again employment (downturns in the economy aren’t kind to construction workers). I received unemployment benefits, and signed up for WIC (Women, Infants & Children for non-USian readers—it’s a nutritional program that provides vouchers for food for pregnant women and families with children up to age 5). Oh yeah, I got all the dirty looks in the world at the grocery store after pulling out the WIC tickets—how dare I look like I don’t sleep in the street!

    Why do so many people assume that any person receiving assistance has never worked a job? That doesn’t want to work a job? Is it a superstitious defense mechanism—“gee, if I hate this person a little harder, maybe the bad luck that fell on her, won’t fall on me.”? What?

  33. 32
    cat says:

    People are dramatically overestimating class mobility, particularly for people with a double marginilization (i.e poor and black (or other person of colour), queer, non-Christian, disabled, etc.). For most people born into poverty, their isn’t a chance in hell that they are ever getting out. Some of us, with relatives with class privilege, with minds that work the way the tests like, with pale skin, might have a slim chance, but still slim. So no, for most poor people, especially life long poor people in poory communities, the ‘industrious poor person’ behavior doesn’t get you anwhere that the ‘lazy poor person’ behavior does. Our class system isn’t merit based. It’s status based. That’s what people keeping missing here. People born into wealth and privilege assume they have the right to be industrious or lazy as they please (more so falling into the latter category, and at much higher rates than poor people), but that they get to dictate what people without their social privilege should do while they work less hours and have every single one of those damned things they blame the poor for thinking they should have. And the rare one in a thousand who, when trying to fight their way up doesn’t get crushed, is encouraged to pretend that they are better than the 999 others like them who didn’t get so lucky. Refusal of a person from a poor community to sell out their community the moment they have a chance to get an in with the rich makes them into an enemy.

  34. 33
    kate says:

    Now, is that the occasional incident for a given person or a pattern of buying $150 pairs of gym shoes for all the kids (and themselves), etc.? If it’s a pattern and a widespread one, then yes; it does materially affect one’s taxes, taxes that have to be shared with police and fire protection, fixing the roads, etc. – as well as providing essentials to those people who actually do economize as much as they can. It sure as hell isn’t fair to the person who needs help and who is buying $30/pair sneakers for their kids and themselves.

    Really bad example. I bought my son a pair of $30 sneakers to “save money”. They lasted one month. The $100+ ones last six months, or longer. Nice things often save money in the long run. That’s why they say it’s expensive to be poor.

  35. 34
    Mandolin says:

    The Sam Vimes “Boots” Theory of Economic Injustice

    At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earnt thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he, Vimes, could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he, Vimes, would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.

    Therefore over a period of ten years, he, Vimes, might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.