How could someone who has ever been poor not be an advocate for the poor?

[I Have A Dream]

This is something that I've been trying to understand for a while. Intellectually, I can understand how someone who has never been poor just wouldn't "get" what it's like to be poor. They wouldn't necessarily understand that people aren't poor because they're lazy, because they lack intelligence or because they have made bad decisions. (Are there poor people who are these things? Of course, but no more so than there are rich people who are these things. It's just that rich people can be these things but still have a safety net to make the fall much less painful or even painless. When you're poor, there's often no room for even the slightest mistake.)

What I don't understand is how anyone who has ever been poor and has managed to crawl their way out of the abyss of poverty could ever forget the terror of being one step away from losing everything. (Of course, many poor people have already lost everything that they owned.) How could that person turn into the same person that the stereotypical rich person is? Is it because they feel that they "worked their asses" off to get out, so anyone else can do it also? (Not admitting that luck had much to do with their currently fortunate cirmcumstances), or is it that they now have a scarcity consciousness where they think that there's only so much to go around, so they're only going to look out for themselves and their families? (Basically the way stereotypical Republicans do.)

Please help me to understand how someone can so lack empathy for those who continue to live in the hardship that they once endured. :(

Also, why are poor people never allowed to make a "mistake" without people implying that poverty is their "just reward"? :cry:

(By the way, of course there are many "rich" people who do not fit the stereotype, and there are many people who were once poor who haven't forgotten their roots.)

[Double T]

1. CONSCIENCE.

[I Have A Dream]

2. Or lack thereof? nt

[pscot]

3. Denial

Self loathing. Like dat.

[I Have A Dream]

6. Really? I wouldn't have thought that. I'll need to think about that.

Thanks!

[rusty quoin]

7. I was thinking self loathing too. The hatred for their childhood becomes contempt.

[Mimosa]

4. How old are you? Do the names Franklin Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy come to mind?

Even conservatives know that FDR and RFK understood and learned about the situations of poor people.

[I Have A Dream]

8. What did you not understand from my post? I said that there were...

many rich people who didn't fit what I was calling the "stereotypical" rich. Please read it again. My question was really about people who have actually been poor not having empathy towards people who are still poor.

[Mimosa]

9. I'm a tired dingbat at times. SORRY I didn't get it.

Just had a bunch of SH*T happen in my pathetic life. Sorry, 'I have a dream.'

[I Have A Dream]

11. I hope that you feel better soon, Mimosa.

I hope that life gets better for you. Your life may feel pathetic, but I'm sure that you're a wonderful person who deserves better. :hug:

[provis99]

5. How could Clarence Thomas not support affirmative action

Considering how black he was, and how much he benefited from affirmative action?

For the same reason formerly poor people aren't sympathetic to the poor.

Its the American "I got mine" syndrome.

[I Have A Dream]

10. But why are Americans like this? Why are other countries more willing...

to help their less fortunate citizens? Why do we tend to be so hard-hearted? (At least in my opinion.)

[provis99]

13. I think it goes the idea of American individualism

which is really our founding myth. European societies are viewed as collectivist, and submit their individual identities to the group, whereas Americans are rugged individualists, who value individual freedom and a focus on self-identity.

The ultimate effect of the belief in the myth however, is not that we are inventive, striving individuals in the traditions of the American cowboy or frontiersman, but really that individualism is simply a cloak for hypocritical selfishness on a scale not imaginable in other societies.

[glowing]

12. Our society creates a me, mine mentality because there are no safety nets.

If you've been once, you don't want to go again. If you make it, do you want to go back? If you are out of poverty, but still scraping things together, do you want to pay more taxes or more costs that make it harder and could put you back into poverty again? Think about the Depression era... How many grandparents splurged on anything. My grandmother reused and recycled everything she could. Clothes were mended and re-worn and then turned into rags. The plastic microwave dishes became re-washed and re-used as little plates or leftover dishes (cool whip dishes and mayo jars were used to freeze home grown blueberries). She pealed a potato so maticulously.. the skin cut off very thin and the little buises taken out with minute detail. She had money, she didn't need to do these things... but she did because she remembered what it was like to be a little girl and be poor and to be hungry and to have to go without.. She remembered and she didn't want to go back.. So, when people get to a point where they have some; they don't want to go back.. I think its fear that makes people appear heartless.... At the same time, why are you picking on the person who escaped poverty to suddenly be able to give? Why aren't you looking at the rich who take and take and have plenty of security to give? Why aren't you pushing govt to give and create a safety net so that no one slips? Don't blame those who have been there and don't want to go back.

[I Have A Dream]

15. Believe me, I expect many things of the rich and of the government.

Just because I didn't address them in this particular post doesn't mean that I feel that they have no obligations. I asked a question about something that confused me. My question does not make the other things not be issues for me.

I grew up poor, and I'm no longer poor. I understand the fear of going back to my earlier circumstances. However, why does that have to make people blame people who are still in the circumstances that they themselves were in before. I'm not talking about your grandmother. I'm talking about people who at one point in their lives didn't have anything to eat complaining because there are school lunch programs or summer lunch programs for children who wouldn't have a meal without them.

I asked a question, and you gave me your explanation, and I appreciate that. However, why do you feel the need to attack me because I'm trying to understand why someone thinks this way? I truly am trying to understand.

[glowing]

24. There was absolutely no attack.. I was answering why people who have

been in destitute situations have less sypathy for those who are where they have been. I think some of it is shame as well... Shame and fear. This country touts a very materialistic image. I think that we must change our consumptive ways in total. I think we must embrace a lifestyle that is much more focused on sustainability.

The thing that needs to happen is our ability to create a safety net so that no one falls. At the same time, everyone should contribute to society... and there are so many ways that people contribute.. Our very ideas of Jobs must change. I think we are in a time of great change. I think we may actually do some good.

[stillcool]

14. Ferdinand Lundberg

touched on this in his book "The Rich and the Super-Rich". The book is available for free down-load at the Soil and Health Library, because of it's copyright expiration
http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html

A Note on Neo-Conservatism

All the neo-conservatives from H. L. Hunt and Barry Goldwater on down resemble Buckley in that, whatever their rated wealth (which is usually small), they are insecure. Some feel subjectively more insecure than others; all are objectively insecure in a changing world. They are caught between big corporations on the one hand and big government, Communist or liberal, on the other. But, envying the big corporations and wishing to be included among them, they direct most of their fire against the cost-raising social aspirations of the people from whom established capital does not feel it has so much to fear. (If necessary, entrenched capital can stand social reform as in Sweden, passing the costs on in price and taxes. It has, in any event, more room for maneuver and holds all the strong positions.)

But the Goldwaters and Buckleys, with their obscure department stores and oil concessions, are in a different boat. They have begun to suspect that they may never make it to the top, there to preen before the photographers. Sad, sad. . . . Hence, they cry, government should not be used to meet the needs of the people, despite the constitutional edict that it provide for the common welfare; government should merely preside over a free economic struggle in which the weak submit to the strong stomachs. As for the Big Wealthy in the Establishment, in the Power Structure, the Power Elite, they should not, say the neo-conservatives, allow themselves to be deluded by infiltrating nurses, governesses, tutors, teachers, wandering professors, swamis, university presidents and others bearing the spirochita pallida of political accommodation. For accommodation has its own special word in the vocabulary of neo-conservatism. It is: Communism.

The neo-conservatives or radical rightists, like the radical leftists, are discontented. There is, however, a different economic basis to the discontent of each. The leftists own no property, therefore see no reason to embrace a property system; the rightists still have some but feel their property claims slipping, feel they are being precipitated into the odious mass of the unpropertied. They foresee being thrown out of the Property Party; for many of them, in fact, are heavily indebted to the banks. The illusion of the radical rightists is that they can yet save their property claims, not by restoring free competition and subduing the rivalrous Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Fords and Mellons (whom they admire and fear as well as envy) but by inducing these latter to join in an all-out assault on the sans-culottes and descamisados.

However, established wealth, seeing no good for itself in upsetting a smoothly running operation which it feels fully capable of controlling, is not interested in this vexing prospect, Hence the outcries of the neo-conservatives against "the Eastern Establishment" and the "socialism" of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. In Buckley's National Review these self-dubbed conservatives sound like inverted Marxists in yachting clothes.

[I Have A Dream]

16. Thank you for this, stillcool47.

It looks like a very interesting read.

It seems that much of this attitude is based on fear. :(

[stillcool]

20. it's a great book...

not only is it full of information, but it is a great read as well. It's like my bible, I refer to it so often. I was thrilled when I found it at this on-line library..like striking gold!

[Kindigger]

21. Excellent website!

The sociologist in me thanks you :)

[Glorfindel]

17. Maybe there's a bit of the "ex-smoker" mentality involved?

I can be a bit smug and self-righteous about quitting smoking (which was the hardest thing I ever did). I can imagine someone else thinking or saying, "If I can fight my way out of poverty, why can't you?" Just a thought. :shrug:

[I Have A Dream]

18. *Intellectually*, I understand what you're saying.

I was poor, and I was able to fight my way out of poverty. However, I realize that things might have very easily gone very differently if various things hadn't gone my way. (i.e, luck certainly had something to do with it.) I certainly don't feel better than anyone else because I happened to have the luck of the draw.

Now quitting smoking's another thing altogether. Congratulations, Glorindel! That truly is something for which you should be proud. :applause:

[Kindigger]

19. I believe

they're still looking for "happiness". They were programmed to believe having money & "stuff" will make them happy. As long as they're busily collecting happiness, they don't take time to reflect and realize there is no end as in "I'm there, I'm done."

In their minds they are getting there, but still poor. They'll always be poor.

Now that I look back, I guess we grew up poor. I didn't realize it at the time, because my parents always made sure we had the "right" clothes for school, and we fit in.

My Mom and I were just discussing this today. I've never really wanted any more than to have food, clothes, and shelter. I've never felt the need to buy a house. For some reason the thought of buying a house makes me feel trapped. My sister is the same way. My brother built a McMansion with a lake on five acres, with the idea of finishing it himself and selling it at a profit. Now he's just trying to keep up with the payments. He's a truck driver who needs a hip replaced, and has three blown discs. The company had him sweeping the warehouse the other day, because they're losing orders right and left. His wife is working three jobs.

He can say "woulda, coulda, shoulda", but he's not sure exactly what. In my mind, seeing his dilemma is an affirmation for me, and my lifestyle.

I hope something in there made sense :)

[I Have A Dream]

22. Thank you, dragndust!

What you say reminds me very much of what Henry David Thoreau said in "Walden" about many people being a slave to their mortgage. His words greatly impacted me and made me realize that a very modest home was what was right for me. You seem to have come to the same conclusion. :)

[Newshues]

23. Not the answer you expect

"Please help me to understand how someone can so lack empathy for those who continue to live in the hardship that they once endured. :("

Your premise is wrong. It is not that they lack empathy, though many do.

"Also, why are poor people never allowed to make a "mistake" without people implying that poverty is their "just reward"? :cry:"

This would be accurate of the ones who do actually lack empathy.

Honest answer? Simple.

They are social darwinists. The fit succeed. The unfit falter. The fit are free to do, as many conservatives actually do, donate and volunteer through various charities, usually their church, to fill the social need that exists.

Rising out of poverty validates their thinking and provides "proof" that there is no need for direct government intervention.

It also is a clear ideological battle line. Take the text another poster quoted that says the constitution says "provide for the general welfare". What The Constitution for The United States of America actually says is "promote the general welfare". There is quite a big difference between the thinking that reads that as "provide" and the thinking that reads that as "promote".

Promote means ensuring equal standards are applied. That the black is judge on the same merits as the white who is in turn judged on the same merits as the brown and all without regard to gender, biological or otherwise. I know, many conservatives fail on specific points of equality but it is the guiding train of thought for the majority of them. Meaning they will tone down the rhetoric and even accept, though not like, the position that there is no good reason why a gay man can't be a elementary school music teacher. Such an example is one way to expose the bigots from the principled.

Promote means earning a job based on your education and merit. Promote means getting into a school because of your own academic achievement. Promote means making judgments in all things based strictly on objective criteria. We're human, we fail at that ideal just like we fail at all ideals whether they be conservative ones or liberal ones or completely none partisan ones.

Provide means food stamps. Provide means affirmative action. Provide means a host of things that do not have objective criteria and does reward based on a lack of merit.

Bottom line though, social darwinism coupled with a strict reading of the constitution and a heavy dose of cynicism.

It is important to note that social darwinism lost favor as the guiding social principal at about the time that the very real threat of communism taking hold in America was emergent. In essence, our social structure was forced to change in order that our country could weather a storm. Or, as a conservative would view it, we were not successful in fully fending off the rise of communism in the United States.

Are we better off without grinding poverty? Yes. Clearly yes. But we also gained an entitlement mentality that always carries with it the risk of overwhelming the ability of the country to pay for it. As the country moves closer and closer over the passage of time towards a true democracy instead of a republic, the entitlement mentality becomes more and more dangerous. Quite a long time ago it was noted that a democracy only lasts as long as it takes the citizens to figure out they can vote themselves a pay raise.

Most conservatives understand the need for a safety net of some kind. Most conservatives will support short term aid for ill fortune. Where we lose them is in the insistence that the aid not be short term. For the rabid conservatives you question is direct towards it is pure social darwinism.

[sandnsea]

25. Vulnerability to failure

If you admit your success was not 100% your own doing, then that means you, too, could lose it all. Rather than deal with that fear, some people just create a reality they can live with - even if it means ridiculing and demeaning others.

[I Have A Dream]

32. Yes, there is truth to what you say. Fear causes many of the problems...

in this world. :(

[maryf]

26. King of the Mountain

The insecurity of finally getting out of the valley of poverty, whether legitimately or not, and the fear of falling back into it, is very similar to the child's game where one person is on top, in order to stay there, he/she has to keep putting others down, literally in the game, figuratively in real life. Not a justification but a reason here.

I'm waiting to hear back from a fellow DU'r who posted a great parable which may help too. Peace, Mary

[I Have A Dream]

33. Thank you, maryf. I've been reading your posts, and it is clear...

that you are a very wise person. :hug:

Your words remind me of an incident over the Memorial Day weekend where a little three year old who is wise beyond his years was coloring a picture of a king, and I told him that he was king of the mountain but that the king of the mountain had to be a good person and nice. It's OK to have prosperity, but it's true prosperity when it is shared and helps others. Nothing feels better, in my opinion.

Thank you also for the story in the post below.

[maryf]

38. Thank you for your kind words!

:hug:

[maryf]

27. an imaginary conversation

The following also fits for food for thought in this thread, its from another group here at du:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=395x392

[bobbolink]

28. Just as children do, in order to survive, we INTERNALIZE the judgments we receive.

Believe me, those of us who are forced to go to "help" agencies, are broken down and FORCED into accepting the world view of those higher up on the pecking order.

Just in order to eat, sleep, get the resources we need, we MUST become like them, or be (literally) punished.

It's a closed loop.

Those of us who RESIST the process are punished and every effort is made to break our spirit.

This is the STRONGEST reason, in my opinion, from what I've experienced, and from what I've listened to from others.

The second is that we feel very bad about ourselves.. we feel rotten, worthless, etc. So, as we climb out of it, by prostrating ourselves to those in power over us, as humans are wont to do, we look down on those who we now see as beneath us.

The only way to stop this process is to make sure that people where you are who are poor and invisible and rejected have somewhere to go, not for a sack of groceries, but somewhere to be treated as a valued human being. To be told they/we are worthwhile. To be appreciated for what we have to offer. To be listened to, and treated as a RESOURCE of wisdom by those who are "helping". WE have things to teach, too!

Only in this way will that whole hateful process change.

[maryf]

30. That makes total sense

It kind of goes with the adage that those who were abused become abusers, its what they come to know INTERNALLY as you say. When one is told they are worthless by others, and then somehow is given "worth" that essentially validates them to these others, the person accepts that validation as truth, and hence projects that judgement on those still in the unfortunate circustance. Its transference and projection and self validation all in one which may kill the compassion in those who "better" their circumstances.

Your suggestions for resolution for this problem makes complete sense, respect the humanity regardless the circumstance, recognize that all have the equal right to home and sustenance, and, perhaps most important to revere and give importance to the offerings that any person has. Thanks Bobbie, good post! Mary

[I Have A Dream]

34. Yes, I agree that much effort is put into breaking the spirit of people in financial need.

We as a society need to start valuing people for things beyond what they have financially. I feel that most of my wisdom was obtained when I was growing up where we were always one pay/emergency away from losing our home. Nothing in my life taught me character, integrity and empathy like that.

I also refused to be broken. In my opinion, life is not worth living if we lose our soul in the process. :hug:

[bobbolink]

35. "I also refused to be broken. "

And that is what makes us objects of scorn in many places.

Have you noticed how just that very attitude is often seen as "mental illness?"

I don't judge those who would trade some of their spirit for survival. Especially when they have children. The point is, that should NEVER be the choice that ANYONE has to make! I've come to the point where I consider it to be evil.

"In my opinion, life is not worth living if we lose our soul in the process. "

You're the second person who has said that to me this week. I think we need to write about that. It's not something that gets much "coverage".

Would you be willing to speak your mind on that? I really do think it's important!

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

:hug:

[I Have A Dream]

36. Yes, II think that what we both feel is righteous indignation at the injustice...

that exists in our society in reference to distribution of critical resources. The thing that really saddens me is that when people who live in poverty speak up on their own behalf, people don't listen because they just consider their words to be "sour grapes". When people who have never lived in poverty try to address the concerns of people who live in poverty, they're called elitists and are dismissed as having a pet cause. That's why I think that it's really important for those who have experienced poverty -- but have managed to overcome it -- to be advocates for the poor, which was the point of the OP in this thread. I think that it's much more difficult to dismiss them.

Yes, I would be willing to add my experience to a thread about the topic. I'm not nearly as eloquent or as articulate as you are, so I don't know if I'll really be able to put the very deep feelings that I have about this subject into words that really express my experience/feelings, but I would certainly lend my voice in support of the subject.

[bobbolink]

37. You've made many important points! First, that we need to speak for ourselves!

In his book, Faith Works , Jim Wallis has a whole chapter titled "Listen To Those Closest To The Problem". That should be OBVIOUS, but we've become a ridiculous society of listening only to the "experts", many of whom NEVER even listen to us at all, so the reality gets completely lost. (Then, of course, we are blamed when their "solutions" don't work. GRRRR)

IN that sense, I would take issue with what you said about people who've never been poor addressing poverty being called "elitists" -- these self-styled experts are the ones looked to, and the only ones heard.

That must CHANGE!

"That's why I think that it's really important for those who have experienced poverty -- but have managed to overcome it -- to be advocates for the poor,"

My only concern with this is that then the "Cinderella Complex" will be thrust on us all. "See, she, he, they did it, so stop making excuses!" I think there is a serious danger there.

HOWEVER, your voice is important. I think the various voices of us ALL are important. We are NOT a group of cookie-cutter look-alikes. We're all individuals, coming from different places, with various talents and outlooks, in different places in our lives. As human beings, we ALL have something important to add.

"I'm not nearly as eloquent or as articulate as you are, "

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I'm willing to bet you're not on as many ignore lists, either.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Seriously, we ALL have a different manner of speaking, for many reasons, and that is exactly where our STRENGTH lies.

Your voice is every bit as important as anyone else's, and I look forward to hearing more from you!

:hug:

[caseycoon]

29. Very thought provoking.

I would have to say I don't really understand that attiude either.
Frankly, I don't understand how ANYONE can dismiss people who are living in poverty as easily as they do. To me all their fine & fancy reasons are nothing more than BS.

[I Have A Dream]

31. That's not surprising from someone who has Dennis Kucinich as his/her avatar.

:loveya:

I totally agree with you, caseycoon. :thumbsup: