As a 20-year old I worked at our (mostly all-white) county Department of Social Services. I saw generational poverty. There were files that were six inches thick, going back to the New Deal programs! Kids raised on AFDC, then as teenagers getting pregnant, and raising the next generation on AFDC. It was frustrating. The system clearly wasn't working to lift people out of poverty as those programs had been intended to do.

That was nearly 40 years ago, and the system has changed somewhat. About 10 years ago I worked for a private charity. Saw the same things.

It was like the young women had no aspirations other than going from one loser to the next, over and over. A kid as a souvenir from every relationship. Working dead end minimum wage jobs. Domestic violence, child abuse, hopelessness . . .

I was able to attend a speech by Ruby Payne. It was the most fascinating thing I've ever heard. She explained the mindset of poverty to a room packed with middle class educators, social workers, etc. by comparing it to the mindset of the ultra rich. We could no better understand the "hidden rules of the upper class" than those in poverty can understand the "hidden rules of the middle class!" Things that seem to be common sense to us in the middle class--like calling in sick if we couldn't make it to work, or having a back-up childcare plan--were things the poor never even think of. We assume they should know, because it's only common sense.

The truth is, there isn't a magic formula to avoiding poverty: Finish your education, be in a stable relationship, postpone childbearing until you've got your own shit together, and limit your family size to what you can handle, emotionally and financially. But, teaching that to people who have never had an example of it in their own lives is nearly impossible.

*sigh* Poverty will always be there - so we can't have a discussion about race on that front.

But - I thank you for sharing your experience. Thats got to be disappointing when you put so much into people who won't grab the rope.

What works best is one-on-one mentoring. Someone taking someone by the hand, and walking with them through their journey. Trouble is, you can't make someone want to take the time to do that.

Interestingly, I noticed that most of the people who were doing their best to escape poverty by going to college and getting a degree were going into low-paying, high burn-out, frustrating human services professions--social work, teaching . . . Obviously, it was because that was what their mentors were doing.

Wouldn't it be nice if the poor could aspire to be hedge fund managers? Or even accountants, or engineers?

One of the things I learned from the Ruby Payne seminar was about a company in Grand Rapids Michigan, that has taken on the task of lifting people out of poverty. They TAUGHT their employees about the importance of being on time, calling in, worked with them to solved the problems of transportation and childcare. (I think it might have been Fred Something Something.) I wonder if the program still exists there, and what their results might have been.

remember the sharecropper/tenant farmer organizing efforts of the 1930s in the south? The white sharecroppers/tenant farmers benefited, gaining higher wages, more control and even access to banking to get from under the landowners ... the Black sharecroppers/tenant farmers did not.

And, in a number of cases where the organizing efforts were successful, the Black sharecropper/tenant farmer just exchanged one landowner for another (though, former sharecropper/tenant farmer) landowner, only to labor under similarly oppressive conditions.

So if past behavior is a strong prediction of future behavior - my idea would be doomed to fail - right?

It would be foolish to wait for an all things equal situation to have an honest discussion about race. Even if we subjugated ourselves for a greater good it would backfire - right?

I really hope that you will take the time to read it. It's an intriguing program. If this could be implemented throughout the country, we might actually make some progress!

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/bridging_the_cultures_of_business_and_poverty

Last edited Sat Oct 4, 2014, 07:51 PM - Edit history (1)

I really think the classism that exists in our society is a very potent and dangerous -ism. And I think so because classism seems to create bigotry among those who suffer from it. We have poor white people who vote against their self-interests, and I think part of it is wanting to identify with the oppressor.

I don't think it's unsolvable. I think a united front is needed, and I think the struggle will need to incorporate all financially disadvantaged people... how to get there is frankly beyond me.

I'd say that while classism and other isms (sexism) are very prominent, systemic issues in the US, racism isn't removed by financial security.

So, no, I would not agree with your premise.

Wealthy people are often extraordinarily racist and bigoted.

Maybe it's because they live in fear of someone "taking theirs" -- as someone mentioned above.

It could be due to many factors, based on different personality types and life experiences.

But financial security doesn't seem to be an experience which removes racism; I fear it may be the opposite. Privilege begets a demand for more privilege to be "above" the "other."

I also don't want everyone to be oppressed (echoing another comment here or perhaps the other recent, related threads); I hope for all people to be uplifted...less suffering, more joy.

Racism seems to be a fundamental disregard for another human being's value in THEIR world (that's key, not merely the world but THEIR world).

And what is/who are valued seems to be determined from the top down, thus the systemic nature of racism. The people at the top -- those with the most power and the most privilege -- are setting that tone, and often making it law.

I don't believe the average person (those who don't seek to dominate or subjugate) would be as inclined to be racist; as we all hear, no one is born that way. I do believe those in power or seeking public power fan those flames as a way to divide and conquer. I also believe religious leaders have been a key factor in the perpetuation of racism and other travesties.

Edit to add: How President Obama has been treated -- immediately, even before he was sworn in -- is a prime example of this. He was treated as "less than" in ways we have NEVER witnessed before, even amidst extreme partisanship. That set a tone. A really, really, really ugly tone.

That combined with the obvious insanity of the meme that we're in post-racial America is a dangerous place to be in for POC. Too much apathy and denial in the face of blatant hatred.

I do feel it's incumbent upon white people to shift this. How, I also don't know. They turn away all too easily and divert and deflect.

I wanted to share an article I posted various places shortly after the killing of Michael Brown.

Two excerpts which really stand out for me are:

I agree with all of it. My concern is that so often we are asked to "wait". We can't wait.

BlueTires posted a thread back here a few days ago about a teenage kid who was not given due process. His arrest in and of itself was bunk - but then what ensued? That could have been my nephews, my father, my brother.

I'm fed up with the concept that we have to wait until the NSA is dissolved, wait until all of the bankers are in jail and wait until there is financial parity in America. These are nifty ideas but none are realistic.

And they won't mean diddly squat to black folks.

1Strong gave an example up thread - waiting and subjugating will not stop my brother from being murdered by a non black man - and him being put on trial as the victim. It won't stop that guy with getting away with it.

I desperately wish I had an answer, a way to wake the world up.

I wrestle with it daily. And that is part of my white privilege. I have the privilege of wrestling with how to get other white people to stand up and speak out -- rather than turn away for any number of excuses -- whereas POC are invested in survival...their own survival, the survival of their children and other loved ones.

We see every single day how dangerous racism is...it's truly a matter of life and death. Surviving versus thriving.

I don't have answers, but I know the healing lies within the oppressive majority: white people.

I am always receptive to any ways suggested to get white people of conscience to wake up and see what's happening and not remain silent, because silence is consent.

I have tried to focus on the systemic nature of it, because that (we hoped) would quell the inclination for guilt to take hold and individuals then turning away from conversation, out of guilt and shame.

But even talking about it from a systemic perspective doesn't stop them from turning away.

As I type this this Saturday afternoon, I'm at a loss. But I do feel it's humanity's deepest wound, so it's not possible for me to ever ignore it. Ever.

How to get more effective in discussing it and keeping it in conversation so it doesn't disappear beneath the surface yet again -- festering like a boil but most definitely not disappearing, that is my dilemma at present.