Former symbol of poverty could face life in prison

[The Straight Story]

Former symbol of poverty could face life in prison
Though poor herself, she took in 28 others before being convicted of running drug ring

By EVELYN NIEVES
New York Times

PINE RIDGE, S.D. — Here in the poorest corner of the poorest Indian reservation in the country, Geraldine Blue Bird's household was one of the worst off.

Then-President Clinton stopped by her home during his 1999 tour of the nation's most impoverished places.

Blue Bird, who lived on a disability check, was squeezing 28 adults and children, most of whom she had taken in from the streets, into a four-room shack with no plumbing and a pop-up camper out back.

When word got out, donations poured in, and continued for years. Blue Bird even received a brand-new double-wide mobile home with four bedrooms.

But the woman who became a symbol of enduring, desperate poverty in the United States now bunks in a jail cell in Rapid City, some 90 miles to the northwest.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4434394.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. How sad

but isn't one of the reasons there is drug abuse amongst the poor because it appears to be the only way to make money?

Wonder how many rich white men who have abused cocaine have gotten off with a slap on the wrist like community service in Houston.....

[The Straight Story]

2. Indeed,

Damn sad. And I bet some of those customers were rich folks who won't see a day in jail.

[SoCalDem]

3. Just another sad reminder of how crushing poverty ruins lives.

People who are raised with nothing, have no experience handling "something" , when their plight comes to the attention of the public.

People are ready to aid in a cause célèbre, but as soon as the attention fades, so do the donations.

People who pat themselves on the back because they served Thanksgiving Dinner at a soup kitchen, forget that poor people need food and shelter EVERY DAY.

Windfalls don't last long, and people who have had nothing for a long time, will often make "bad judgments" with their newly found assets. and that only manages to turn off the people who gave..

Giving is often more about the giver, than the receiver. Invisible strings are attached to the aid..

She did a stupid thing and will pay with her life now, but to her, that life probably was not a lot of "fun" anyway.

The real solution to this sort of thing, is a minimum living standard that all could have without being entangled in those Lilliputian strings..or without having to make themselves into a poverty poster-child.