The Language of Dehumanization: The Poor vs. The Poorest

[OneGrassRoot]

"The hardworking residents of Grand Junction would never dream of speaking this way of a former neighbor, even if they felt that former neighbor was making poor choices or struggling with addiction. We just don't talk that way about those we know. And when you are like Chelsea, struggling economically, the fear is intense that it can or will happen to you. That fear can take people to very ugly places.

The homeless need a present day Martin Luther King, Jr. — a person who can speak to the common humanity that we all share and the fact that there is enough to go around in this wealthy and powerful country of ours. If we choose, we can treat our neighbors with compassion and generosity rather than hate."

http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/the_language_of_dehumanization_the_poor_vs_the_poorest


I want to DO something concrete to start to destigmatize poverty, especially focused on youth and hopefully it can radiate from there. And start to address the fear that is alluded to here; the fear that takes people to these ugly places and causes them to turn away, fearing these struggles are going to "rub off" in some way. People are afraid because most know they're only one paycheck away from homelessness themselves.

We as a nation seem to have no problem supporting efforts to eradicate poverty, hunger and homelessness in other countries, with sexy rock stars making it sexy to support these causes, but no similar effort is made to acknowledge and thus work toward eliminating the causes of poverty, hunger and homelessness in the United States.

It tarnishes the infamous American Dream too much, I suppose.

It's that same bogus idea that is making people who are struggling -- including people who ARE working, working very hard (and realizing they're fortunate to HAVE a job) -- feel dehumanized. My 17-year-old daughter said yesterday in discussing this issue that, "No one wants to admit they're having financial trouble because even kids my age have the attitude, that 'Hey, this is America. If you work hard, you can have anything. You must be lazy or doing something wrong.'"

:mad:

Bullshit.

Just as people got behind AIDS as a cause, leading to it no longer being stigmatized, then being recognized and then having support to try to eradicate it, we need to make poverty "sexy," for lack of a better word.

How can we make the issue of poverty sexy?

Not make poverty itself acceptable, but make it acceptable for those struggling with poverty and homelessness to acknowledge it and thus come together with others.

I want to start some sort of campaign to this effect via Wishadoo. Start with a petition perhaps, to gather troops? Have a simple action plan, asking everyone, especially students, to DO one thing that would work toward this destigmatization? Something that could catch on via Facebook, perhaps, rather than requiring an official lesson plan in schools which can't be implemented quickly.

A simple act to start to destigmatize poverty and those struggling in it.

If anyone wants to gather to brainstorm, contact me! :)

November 14th is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Maybe this effort can be a leadup to that?


http://www.nationalhomeless.org/projects/awareness/index.html

edit for typo

[dkf]

1. I wonder if this fits in the too many victims category.

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9143924

If true, the solution is to create empathy on a case by case basis, to turn "the poor" into individuals rather than a group.

And sadly, the media is necessary, either that or a viral you tube video. But people will never understand what they can't see and haven't experienced.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I JUST saw that and wondered the same....

:(

Probably a very similar mindset involved.

[dkf]

3. That piece has opened my eyes though.

Being aware of our propensity to downplay the large scale makes me look at things differently. Could it be that the left has more ability to see individuals than the right?

[OneGrassRoot]

4. To me, it's that empathy thing...

We (most progressives) feel it's a positive trait to have, and one to develop further; most right-wingers diss having empathy, as though it's a weakness.

I think all people, however, regardless of political ideology, are susceptible to the fear reaction; many avoid people and issues because they don't want to be close to it in any way for fear of acknowledging they're also vulnerable to the same. As though it's a disease or something.

Bobbolink posted a cool video about empathy the other day:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9121535&mesg_id=9121535

[dkf]

5. Wow that is an amazing video

Thanks for the link. I missed it earlier.

[bobbolink]

12. I see what you are saying, but I think there are more options than that.

Case by case means that a lot of very good and very worthy people will lose out.

I have been thinking of one really good option for this, but.... it has become a drag to try to get DUers to sign on to something. It is almost not worth the effort.....energy can be better spent elsewhere, and that's what some of us are doing.

ONe other way that I have mentioned to a few is to take a couple of good books.... "Empathy Gap" for one, "Tyranny of Kindness" is another, and do a group book study. It can be done online, if people would only be willing to do so. They will read and study about a lot of other issues, but not this.

Yes, there are other ways of doing this besides "case by case". But it has to be important enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Kindness-Dismantling-Welfare-Poverty/dp/0871135787


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=empathy+gap&x=14&y=17

[Raspberry]

6. LBJ declared "War on Poverty"

45 or so years ago. We have poured brazilions of $$$ into it. There has been program after program, all designed to help the poor. Nothing has worked, and, if anything, there are MORE poor now than there were then. Serious question: Is their poverty any more tolerable than that of the poor 50 years ago? If not, I think we have to admit that the whole War on Poverty has been a failure. I don't know what will work, and I am discouraged to the point of believing that nothing ever will work.

[OneGrassRoot]

7. You may find this discussion interesting:

A post by another brilliant DUer:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9130694

It's become a war on those IN poverty rather than a war on poverty itself. Mtnleo2 makes a great point about these programs being an industry in and of themselves, though NOT for the benefit of those they were created to serve.

I don't have answers either. I don't think anyone has any clearcut answers that can be implemented in a timeframe to truly help the millions suffering.

But, there are places to start perhaps, attacking the issue from various angles and bringing it to light as much as possible.

I'm very discouraged about legislative attempts as, to me, our system itself is broken. It's very hard to work within a broken system -- feels like a waste of energy (though we should still work toward reforming the system itself, IMHO) -- so it seems something completely outside the box is the way to go.

I'm still searching for what that may be, something regular, everyday people can DO.

:hi:

[Raspberry]

9. Interesting link

I will read it in more detail later, but right now I'm getting ready for work.

[bobbolink]

13. Actually, your facts aren't accurate.

Its like the schools now, less money has been put into it than needed, so that it will fail, and then can be blamed on poor people themselves.

It is a RW talking point.

[Selatius]

14. The War On Poverty ended when LBJ left office. Where were you when he left?????

I don't know where you get your information from, but there's a reason why the Great Society programs (aka the War On Poverty) isn't remembered like the New Deal is remembered. It's because THEY STOPPED ADEQUATELY FUNDING IT.

[bobbolink]

15. Thank you for saying it right up front! It is a RW meme, and for "progressives" to be chanting this

is quite ignorant.

Its also very damaging to poor people, and causing suffering and deaths. I wonder if that even matters to many people anymore.

One example of the dismantling that you mentioned.. Raygun took away the subsidizing of low-income housing. Result? The beginning of the Homelessness Epidemic.

People still don't understand that, and until we "progressives" figure out ways to get that understood, it will continue.

[Selatius]

16. And it was Nixon and Ford who dismantled the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Because of those two, the OEO is now just a reference in a history book. I still can't believe Hubert Humphrey lost to that dumbass Nixon.

[Lyric]

20. The War on Poverty isn't working because we haven't changed the narrative

Unless and until we change the underlying cultural belief that poverty is a result of personal failure, we can never "win" that war. We need to change the narrative. We need to prove to America once and for all that the vast, vast majority of people who suffer from poverty are NOT immoral, lazy, selfish, or stupid...that they are victims of a terrible economic and social structure that absolutely REQUIRES poverty for the lower class in order to create comfort for the middle class. Those low, low prices that the consumer class adores are there in part because of outsourcing and cheap foreign labor, but ALSO because the raises, benefits, pensions, and jobs of the working class have been usurped in order to create low retail prices for the middle class. You can get cheap laundry detergent and t-shirts at Target, but understand that the low price YOU pay is only low because the manufacturers and retailers pay their employees shit wages with no benefits or pensions.

We can't have it both ways, folks. We can't have cheap consumer goods AND a strong working class. You can't defeat poverty in America when American consumerism combined with ignorance and judgemental attitudes are the major contributors that keep the poverty wheel spinning.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[mmonk]

8. Why should people have empathy when they have dogma?

:sarcasm:

[Sanity Claws]

10. dehumanization is the problem

I didn't realize that the tier narrowly above the tier of poverty bought into the dehumanization meme.

Anyway, the meme has been going around for a while and ran rampant in the 1980s with Reagan's stories of Welfare queens in Cadillacs. It is gaining traction again with some talking heads claiming that people are unemployed because they're lazy and have poor personalities. This gives others the idea that they can turn their back on the poor and disregard them. I feel like part of this group who has become throw away people.

I thought the best argument against it was the statistic that over 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH

Clearly, people end up poor because of structural problems in the economy, lack of jobs and illusory medical insurance, not due to some personal failing.

I would like to see these people band together and create an economy outside of the corporate driven economy. Urban farming is an important part of this alternative economy. I'd like to see the unemployed and poor create workers coops and L3C's (I know you know what they are, OGR) to make things needed locally. Germany has some towns that have created their own local scrip to keep business local. I'd like to see something like that here.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. Absolutely...

The system is broken, not those trying to survive within it. Well, it's broken for at least 90% of the people, I'd say.

I'm one of the 60% referenced in that article. I've worked 80 hours a week for the last 18 years and am most certainly not a spendthrift, don't take vacations, etc. And I'm not alone.

That GWB clip of him at a town hall meeting with a woman from the audience sitting next to him, saying she works three jobs to make ends meet and his response, "Only in America!" as though it was a positive thing, really says so much.

:hi:

[bobbolink]

17. Here is one thing that can be done "quickly"

Assemble the TRUE facts of homelessness on a sheet, and organize people to hand them out and answer questions that people have.

This event is scheduled for Oct. 10?

There are a lot of informational ideas that could be implemented in that time.

It just takes people who are willing to do so.

[OneGrassRoot]

18. Hand them out where, Bobbie?

I'm very interested in what you have in mind. :hi:

In my experience, people "out and about" really aren't that interested unless it is an event focused on issues.

Getting them to pay attention and BE interested seems to be the challenge?

I'm all ears (well, eyes!). :)

[bobbolink]

19. Can be done on college campuses, for one thing.

I just had a conversation with a college office locally... they have a department which is concerned with getting students involved with "real life" issues. I'm sure this is something that many colleges and universities are doing.

Churches, civic groups, even political gatherings, for the goddesses sake... we KNOW political people don't really understand the issue.

There are many places to do this, if people actually have the interest.

[asdjrocky]

21. This is good.

Thanks for the post OGR, bookmarked for later, when I can spend some time on the site.

[TBF]

22. Kick!

:kick:

[MerryBlooms]

23. kick

Some great input in this thread!