(no subject)
Sep. 8th, 2005 05:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzThe outpouring of relief for hurricane victims is weird. Many of these same people have been needy for years. As poor black folk, they were blamed for their predicament, but as hurricane victims they deserve our immediate action and sacrifice? I mean it's cool that we are supporting some people up here in DC, but you know there have been needy people living in DC for some time now w/o everyone freaking out, inviting them in their homes, and killing themselves to offer help. Perhaps having the hurricane circumvented the 'blame the poor for their plight' mentality?
What might be interesting is what happens to the refugees (I think the term applies) in the long run. What if this disaster leads to a significant number of people changing classes - breaking out of the cycle of poverty? If someone were to measure this movement, imagine the implications for public policy! On the other hand, if the poor remain poor despite the relocation and outpouring of support, imagine again the policy implications. I would hope that beneficially uprooted poor would do better and change socioeconomic classes, encouraging financial investment to fight poverty. If you see a return to poverty, then those that argue that money to the poor is wasted.
I'm not sure whether in the long run it helps or hurts socioeconomic status for the poor to be uprooted. I don't mean to quote Ms. Bush, but if poor NOLA victims wind up with assistance that locates them out of poor urban blight you might see significant class movement, on the other hand if you simply transfer the poor into different poor areas, they may well be worse off simply for having lost their belongings and lived through events that add PDSD to their list of problems. The people in shelters are those who already lacked a safety net - I'm guessing those with family are pretty much getting help from their family or other support networks.
Perhaps it shows that in the american mindset there is a bottom, a standard of living that we want people to live in regardless of whether they work or not. People always have stories about some homeless scam artist they know / saw on tv, about how the poor aren't really poor, about how the poor will throw away anything given to them. The stories seem to allow people to maintain their wealth guilt-free, removing the discomfort of passing people on the street (side note, I rarely give to people on the street - I believe money is better spent on support networks than directly to the source).
Is the conservative mindset correct? Is being poor is supposed to suck, and suck horribly and fatally in some cases? Perhaps hand-feeding the needy hurts them in the long run, teaching them dependence. Perhaps the answer is the conservative one - allow being poor to suck, horribly, and provide the means for hard-working poor to get out of poverty (the typical conservative seems to miss the 'means' part of the equation). Is being poor supposed to suck so bad that anyone that is wired right or close to right will work hard enough to get out of poverty, and those in poverty will inspire the rest of us to work hard enough and be financially responsible enough to stay out? Is the solution just to provide the means to escape poverty through public education (which sucks if you're poor), equal opportunity (which won't exist w/o decent public education), and equal treatment of citizens regardless of social class (has this ever actually happened)? Or is poor simply a tough question of where you happen to be born? Are there twin studies in which one is raised poor and the other privileged? Oh wait, we have the countries of USA and Australia to disprove any genetic nonsense.
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In other news, yesterday sucked. Work sucked, school sucked, it sucked. I was driving home kind of looking at myself. I don't need all this stuff. I used to think I was comfortable on $12/hr. Why am I working so hard to move up to jobs I don't think I'll like? Why am I so quick to sacrifice how I act to join management and be sterile and distant for hours a day? Why is 80k different than 40k or 160k? Why is a house better than a condo when I only use 3-4 rooms? Isn't everything I do just another form of whoring myself? Indecent proposal would rock - imagine how much less of a whore I would be for committing one brief act for a large amount of money than to commit a series of degrading behaviors for decades of my life for a trickle of support. The only thing I can think of that isn't some sort of service for others is to move to the country and grow food - then just whine about being a servant to the land. I'm caught up in the rat race, as so many 70s songs would say. I care about the numbers in my account, what people's eyes do at my resume, what choices I have available. One big wave or an asteroid and I'm just another body looking for food.
What might be interesting is what happens to the refugees (I think the term applies) in the long run. What if this disaster leads to a significant number of people changing classes - breaking out of the cycle of poverty? If someone were to measure this movement, imagine the implications for public policy! On the other hand, if the poor remain poor despite the relocation and outpouring of support, imagine again the policy implications. I would hope that beneficially uprooted poor would do better and change socioeconomic classes, encouraging financial investment to fight poverty. If you see a return to poverty, then those that argue that money to the poor is wasted.
I'm not sure whether in the long run it helps or hurts socioeconomic status for the poor to be uprooted. I don't mean to quote Ms. Bush, but if poor NOLA victims wind up with assistance that locates them out of poor urban blight you might see significant class movement, on the other hand if you simply transfer the poor into different poor areas, they may well be worse off simply for having lost their belongings and lived through events that add PDSD to their list of problems. The people in shelters are those who already lacked a safety net - I'm guessing those with family are pretty much getting help from their family or other support networks.
Perhaps it shows that in the american mindset there is a bottom, a standard of living that we want people to live in regardless of whether they work or not. People always have stories about some homeless scam artist they know / saw on tv, about how the poor aren't really poor, about how the poor will throw away anything given to them. The stories seem to allow people to maintain their wealth guilt-free, removing the discomfort of passing people on the street (side note, I rarely give to people on the street - I believe money is better spent on support networks than directly to the source).
Is the conservative mindset correct? Is being poor is supposed to suck, and suck horribly and fatally in some cases? Perhaps hand-feeding the needy hurts them in the long run, teaching them dependence. Perhaps the answer is the conservative one - allow being poor to suck, horribly, and provide the means for hard-working poor to get out of poverty (the typical conservative seems to miss the 'means' part of the equation). Is being poor supposed to suck so bad that anyone that is wired right or close to right will work hard enough to get out of poverty, and those in poverty will inspire the rest of us to work hard enough and be financially responsible enough to stay out? Is the solution just to provide the means to escape poverty through public education (which sucks if you're poor), equal opportunity (which won't exist w/o decent public education), and equal treatment of citizens regardless of social class (has this ever actually happened)? Or is poor simply a tough question of where you happen to be born? Are there twin studies in which one is raised poor and the other privileged? Oh wait, we have the countries of USA and Australia to disprove any genetic nonsense.
-----
In other news, yesterday sucked. Work sucked, school sucked, it sucked. I was driving home kind of looking at myself. I don't need all this stuff. I used to think I was comfortable on $12/hr. Why am I working so hard to move up to jobs I don't think I'll like? Why am I so quick to sacrifice how I act to join management and be sterile and distant for hours a day? Why is 80k different than 40k or 160k? Why is a house better than a condo when I only use 3-4 rooms? Isn't everything I do just another form of whoring myself? Indecent proposal would rock - imagine how much less of a whore I would be for committing one brief act for a large amount of money than to commit a series of degrading behaviors for decades of my life for a trickle of support. The only thing I can think of that isn't some sort of service for others is to move to the country and grow food - then just whine about being a servant to the land. I'm caught up in the rat race, as so many 70s songs would say. I care about the numbers in my account, what people's eyes do at my resume, what choices I have available. One big wave or an asteroid and I'm just another body looking for food.
