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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nDear reader, I write this as a member of the dominant culture FOR other members of the dominant culture because many of us are simply unaware. I know I was. And those of us who have an inkling, have various reasons for pushing thoughts on this topic aside. When something is too big to handle or for us to fix we have a tendency to focus on the things we CAN do. However, if we don\u2019t know the state of poverty, then we can\u2019t understand why important policies don\u2019t pan out the way we thought they would in this country. This is a long blog\u2013especially if you read the links (and that is exactly what I hope you do) but in the end, if you make it through, you\u2019ll understand what I\u2019m talking about. And even if you knew before, you might learn something more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What White Supremacy Culture calls \u201cpoverty of poor decisions\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have the fortitude to really look at it, the poverty in the US right now is astounding. I belong to various Black female or femme-led online groups where Direct Giving opportunities are posted. Through these windows, I have been made aware of just how close to or even off of the edge many Black women are living. One local group I belong to offers \u201cWish Wednesday\u201d in which group members (again female or femme) of color can write two wishes\u2013one big wish and one small wish. If those of us with a bit (or a lot) more means can help someone we can \u201cdirect message\u201d them on the side. So many women and mothers are about to miss their rent, electricity bill, or even water bill in any given month (often due to job loss). They are trying to choose between heating their homes or feeding their children. Birthday or Christmas presents are out of the question. Cars are not working or there\u2019s no gas money.<\/p>\n\n\n As a member of the dominant culture, I repeatedly hear us opining that \u201cthose people\u201d are poor because of their own \u201cbad decisions\u201d. And, indeed, it is hard for us to understand how a poor, single woman might have made the decision to have three, four, or more children. But in many of the posts in the online groups referenced above, children have been taken in by a relative of a single parent who has died or was killed. That relative was already living on the edge with her own children. In fact, many Black, Indigenous, and other folks come from backgrounds so poor that there really is no viable way out. Living with no hope of ever having enough money to be secure causes one to prioritize money differently than the dominant culture does. If you\u2019d like to understand better how this works, read this article from The Atlantic,<\/strong> Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions<\/a>. It will open your eyes. Poverty is a culture in and of itself. Children raised in that culture find it very difficult to break out of it, as they have already internalized or been traumatized by so many of its norms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A Real-Life Example<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday, I met Maven (not her real name) when I dropped something off for her at her home. In this one person\u2019s story, I heard reference to almost every example I\u2019d ever heard about how people on the bottom are kept there or pushed further into poverty: Domestic violence, lack of healthcare resources, inability to receive stimulus, and\/or child care credit checks, barriers to supplemental security Income (due to disability) and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maven had lived in St. Louis where she\u2019d had a job in the school system. She described having been promoted twice. (She does not have a degree, so these were not teaching positions, per se. Nonetheless, she enjoyed and excelled at her work with the children.) Then, a few years ago, she developed a relationship with a man who had a steady job, making a good wage. He owned a large home and eventually she and her children moved in with him. Eventually he suggested that she didn\u2019t need to work anymore; he could support her. Much as she liked her job, it was tiring and his offer was too tempting to resist. Shortly thereafter, the domestic violence began.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please read about domestic violence among black women in this Time<\/strong> article: Why Black Women Struggle More with Domestic Violence<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maven grabbed the two younger of her three children (her oldest was out of the house by then) and returned to Portland, where she had lived only 4 years earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the first things she explained to me was her health situation. Two severe problems, neither of which could be corrected\u2013one that prevented her from walking any distance without a walker, another which prevented her from being able to see very well. She was now unable to drive, severely limiting her options. While she is middle-aged, she is not by any means elderly and was not expecting to be physically and visually handicapped at her age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This excerpt from a 2017 CDC report on the CDC<\/strong> website, entitled African American Health, indicates that her condition is not unusual: <\/p>\n\n\n\n African Americans are living longer. The death rate for African Americans has declined about 25% over 17 years, primarily for those aged 65 years and older. Even with these improvements, new analysis shows that younger African Americans are living with or dying of many conditions typically found in white Americans at older ages. The difference shows up in African Americans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s for diseases and causes of death. When diseases start early, they can lead to death earlier. Chronic diseases and some of their risk factors may be silent or not diagnosed during these early years. Health differences are often due to economic and social conditions that are more common among African Americans than whites. For example, African American adults are more likely to report they cannot see a doctor because of cost. All Americans should have equal opportunities to pursue a healthy lifestyle. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She explained that because she had stopped working the year she moved in with her boyfriend, she did not earn enough credits to get disability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a 2020 article from The Hill<\/strong>, that explains this and more: Social Security Administration is preparing to bar 500,000 Americans from getting benefits<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This begs the question: Now that she is disabled, how is she supposed to earn enough money to get disability? In fact, what are disability checks for if you can\u2019t get them because you are too disabled to work anymore? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, she told me that she had been homeless for the first year after arriving back in Portland. Because she was homeless, Social Security deducted the amount of her social security check that related to housing. When I got home, I looked it up. Sure enough, if you are being cared for, as in a shelter, they do deduct \u2153 of your Social Security money.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the Social Security<\/strong> Web page entitled Spotlight on Living Arrangements — 2021 Edition:<\/strong> The arrangement is that for the first six months out of nine, you get your SSI. For the last three months out of nine, you don\u2019t<\/a> (link)<\/p>\n\n\n\n One wonders how she is supposed to find a place to live if her income is reduced? Landlords do tend to check that kind of thing, e.g. “How much of a risk is this tenant going to be?” That being the only source of money in her life, this arrangement might present a bit of a problem, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Maven\u2019s challenges with government checks did not stop there. Not by far! She did not receive any of the stimulus checks that were issued. She hadn\u2019t paid taxes after quitting her job and moving in with her boyfriend, therefore the IRS did not have the correct address on file.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This 20210 article<\/a> from Business Insider<\/strong> bears out the likelihood of Maven\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, Maven didn\u2019t just lose out on three big checks that were designed to help people like her through the pandemic. She also missed out on all the child tax credits she should have received for her 3 children. Through some sleight of hand that she did not attempt to explain to me, her younger sister managed to claim all of her three children. I had read about estranged parents claiming the tax credit payments before the parent who was actually raising the children could stop them so I knew this kind of thing did happen. I am unable at this time to find that article or any others specifically about that, but I see several references about fraud due to a scam that a lot of folks fell for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Commentary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy to see how those who live at the bottom of the \u201chierarchy of importance\u201d in this culture, those for whom government assistance repeatedly does not apply, could easily get discouraged from making any attempt to reach out to these agencies for an explanation. They probably suspected that they were ineligible anyway. Too poor to be helped. In any case, reaching anyone at Social Security can take hours in the best of circumstances. The same is true of the IRS. But during the Covid shutdown, both agencies were short-handed. Yet Maven had done her research. In almost every case I was able to verify that the circumstances she described were based on real, documented policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Usually, the jobs people like Maven are able to get are the least desirable\u2013the poorest paying, with the most exposure to the public and the least protection\u2013like, for example, Maven\u2019s job with the school district. Furthermore, now that we have a better understanding of her living conditions and many others like her, what should we expect people living at this level of poverty to do when they develop Covid symptoms? Did they receive the free test kits? If not, do they have insurance for an in-person test? If they don\u2019t, and they don\u2019t get tested, will they stay home and follow Covid protocols just in case. If they do have insurance, can they afford to pay $130 upfront at a testing center, then wait 6-9 months for reimbursement? If they were tested and had Covid, can they afford to follow the protocols? (On a side note, if you believe that many choose not to get tested, for reasons ranging from poverty to simple selfish disregard for fellow humans, how accurate do you think the case numbers actually are?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what do we take away from all this? There are several layers of cultural reality implicit in this information.<\/p>\n\n\n 2. That we live in an ivory tower based on a foundation of belief that we are \u201cdeserving.\u201d <\/strong>We deserve the education we received. We deserve the salaries we make. We deserve the houses we bought, the neighborhoods we live in, the vacations, and the food deliveries. We are proud that we bought the finest heating and cooling systems and electric cars because they were the most energy-efficient and thereby we did our best for the environment. But if we deserve our foothold in the cultural pyramid, no matter how humble it might be, does it follow that those below us are there because they deserve it? Can we sidestep that question by responding that the real reason there are those below us is that the system is corrupt? Only, I think, if we\u2019re willing to share some, at least, of what we\u2019ve gained by our privilege in this system. <\/p>\n\n\n 3. That our money must never be given to anyone who might not deserve it. <\/strong>We insist that the money we share must go to an organization that has been vetted and which will, in turn, vet the eventual recipients of the money. This is a convention that runs very deep in us, even though many of us will hand out little bits to homeless people at the side of the road. This is problematic because a) It requires a middle \u201cman\u201d (or many middle people; b) These middle people, who vet the recipients, must get paid, so only a part of our contribution is given to the people it was intended for; c) The people in the middle are receiving a financial benefit as a result of the misfortune of others; d) The people who need the money do not get it immediately, which is when they need it. In fact, they may not get it at all\u2013perhaps they don\u2019t meet the criteria to be accepted into the program.; and e) Even so, they still need the money. <\/p>\n\n\n 4. That these are increasingly desperate times, and desperate times call for new ways of doing things.<\/strong> Here I will make the argument that we need to turn our generous impulses away from \u201ccharities\u201d and towards direct giving and mutual aid. (Mutual aid groups are organized by those who need the money, not by those who took the job of managing the money meant for those who need it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Read The Giving Apps: How Venmo and Cash App Upended a Century-Old Charity Model<\/strong> (link)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of all the money that has been given to popular charities, non-profits, and fundraisers and ask yourself what they have really changed? How much money over how many years has been given to Susan G Komen \u201cFor the Cure\u201d breast cancer non-profit? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Visit https:\/\/www.komen.org\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Where is the cure? And every time a woman dies of breast cancer, they receive more money in memoriam\u2013given by friends and family of that woman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/9tLLHcu3MnK2F9wAn1yy614ErPFFweAHThkR1_UvyTQLAUf42WfEa5j4Vtc_hmnwt_DLyn8GxuWoae7y3N49Og1AyqzHmVRofEqATeRMyVakDrKXalxZANmQoSy7y1AYsXB3r8uY\")
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