I often wonder why it is that so many people seem to resent and even hate the poor. I have heard so many comments filled with disgust and anger toward those in poverty, and I just can't understand where it is coming from.
It is a basic belief in our culture that we have what we have because we worked hard to get it. Now, I like to think I have earned the things I have gotten, including my education, job, and even my very minimal social status. But, at the same time, given different circumstances, could I have accomplished more? I think so. If I'd been born into a highly educated family, prominent in the community, it would have given me an extra boost, so to speak. I wouldn't have had to climb quite as far to get where I am. And I think that is true for most of us. Where we start in life significantly affects where we end up in life.
Of course, you’re going to immediately think of the exceptions, like Oprah who came from nothing to be one of the most powerful women in America. I would argue that cases like hers are the exception, rather than the rule. Obviously there are people who have enough drive and will, along with talent and ability and/or luck to seize the right opportunities at the right time, that will rise above all the obstacles and setbacks to be hugely successful. For many of the rest of us, we’ll struggle along, raising our station in life gradually, hoping to give our children a little better start than we hard, so that they will be able to go even further.
There is a cycle of poverty, however, that is very difficult for the poorest people to get out of. In fact, it may seem to us that they are not even trying to get out of it, and perhaps they’re not. Poverty has a way of driving out hope, of making one think that there is nothing they can do better their situation, so they give up. Children who are raised in these situations may come to accept that mindset, even embrace it as their way of life.
I feel for these people because I have been there. I grew up in eastern Kentucky, where jobs that can raise one’s standard of living are very few and far between. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there and make a better life for myself and family. It would be easy for me to think, “Well, I got out. So could they if they tried hard enough.” But I don’t. It just isn't that simple. I know many don’t want to get out, and I understand why. It’s their home, and they don’t want to leave it. (The biggest way to change lives in eastern Kentucky would be to improve the economic conditions, though I am under no illusion that this would be a simple matter.) They may be raised to think college is for “others”, but not them. They may be raised to think that they are destined to have a certain kind of life and there is nothing they can do to change it.
I do wish there was a way to change this culture to one that values education. But I don’t resent or hate them for it. I don’t begrudge them because many of them are using “my” tax dollars to live on. I don’t scorn them for their ignorance. And I don’t blame them being who they are.
It is just so much more complicated than that. We can sit from where we are and say, they should do this or they should do that. But they are living their lives and we can not live it for them. Those of us not in poverty should only be grateful for the things that we have, and quit blaming the poor for the fact that we don’t have more. We need to change our mindset, from one of resentment and self-righteousness, to one of understanding and compassion. That is how positive change happens--from lifting others up, not stomping on them while they are down.
