I live in a working class neighborhood, aka POOR people. There are so many misunderstandings of the poor that the picture people have of the poor in their heads is a tragicomic puppet show compared to the reality. Most poor people have aspirations that involve finding the opportunity to get ahead.
Almost every motherfucker I ever met who “helped the poor” never addressed creating opportunity. These saviors and spokespeople are often bottlenecks for real solutions to occur. The household income in my neighborhood is near the bottom in all of metropolitan SoCal but everyone has a smartphone. The conservatives decry this as a misappropriation of funds and the liberals are upset that the poor would surf the internet on their phones instead of follow their pablum education.
Every conservative flips out about anchor babies but would deny them basic healthcare for their children and every liberal rants about overpopulation blinded to the classism and racism of their words.
So with the Pope here highlighting the plight of the poor I cannot hold it in any longer – either create opportunities for the poor, support the creation of long-term opportunity for the poor or just announce that you are a dick and don’t care about the poor, because mouthing platitudes about responsibility and education are basically mouthing your upper-middle-class values that I don’t want to hear any more and no poor person is going to take as anything more than the tired, know-nothing bullshit it is.
And this feelgood bullshit about “Oh talk to the homeless, let the poor tell you their stories.” NO. Volunteer in a soup kitchen and campaign for politicians who will address mental health because homelessness is first and foremost a mental health issue. If you do not do either of those, that is cool, selfish but whatever, but DO please shut the fuck up, your hot air armchair politics is detrimental to any and all actual solutions.
Oh god and please stop it with the art initiatives for the poor. The poor enjoy more art than you ever will. Every house in my neighborhood has satellite TV. You want to binge watch your sophisticated HBO shows and then bring art to the ghetto and guess what, they got a whole slew of shows they watch too and don’t need your cloying lectures justifying finger-painting as education to have as rich a cultured life as you.
I could rant on and on, but basically, the left and the right have stock answers to poverty that do not address creating substantial opportunity. The right wants that reserved for fat corporations and the left wants the state to be the hall monitor on all upward mobility. Does the proposal create upwardly mobile opportunity? It is a yes or no question – a long hot air armchair answer means “I got mine and fuck them but here is a lecture”.
PS – they’re not saints either, idiot, quit talking about them like they are stray dogs that just need obedience school and a visit to the vet.