The Impulse to Judge Poverty: Summer Lessons in Internalized Racism
As a middle-aged, middle+ class white woman, I've been spared the ravages of poverty—living it, living next to it, or simply witnessing it. What I haven't been spared are assumptions, biases and blindspots about poverty. This goes for most (not all) white Americans, and is entirely by design.
So I'm trying to bust out of the mold.
I witnessed a shoot-out in front of my Black neighbor's home. The sound of a semi-automatic assault rifle is shattering. Trembling after the shooting stopped, I thought about people who hear this weekly, or daily. People for whom the sound triggers the grief of friends, family and neighbors actually hurt by gun violence. No one I saw was hit or hurt: my trauma was fleeting and conceptual, not existential.
While talking with a policeman on the scene, I learned a Black man fled with a gunshot wound. "He's not the victim," the cop said looking at me and my white neighbor. "You two are". It took me a minute, but I finally said, "He's the victim of a lot." It wasn't enough, but it was something.
I don't believe anyone gladly chooses to target or be the target of gun violence. I believe all the stuff of poverty—closed doors, multi-generational trauma, the societal pretense of equal opportunity—leads individuals to make choices based on survival. Choices that I have deep cultural judgements about.
A week later, I worked on the Blackfeet Indian reservation alongside locals on projects they requested help with. There's no myth of equal opportunity when it comes to Native Americans. The poverty is abject. Everything from roads to teeth to houses were crumbling. In two afternoons at an Indigenous-run food bank, we gave food to 155 households, feeding 700-900 individuals. There are only 1,000 in the immediate town, 10,000 across the vast reservation. These are hungry people.
Of the many biases I bumped up against, a persistent one was my reaction to disarray. Yards were filled with junk, kitchens were coated in grime, clothes were dirty. Not everywhere or with everyone, by any means—but so much more than in my life and circles. I spent the week squinting to see things differently: how when poverty is at play, junk equals parts that may be useful later, and prioritizing family and relationships makes sense over a sparkling kitchen. This may sound flippant, but it felt profound, and deeply confrontational on a personal level.
Two takeaways:
Anytime and any place we can confront our judgments will help us be more effective antiracists. And by that I mean be better humans in relationship with other humans, which is required to banish inequity.
I'm often crushed by the feeling that there's nothing I can do. What's true about this is best addressed as grief. What's not true deserves the energy, access, privilege and stable footing us white middle class folks have. See Poverty Antidotes Recommended Resource or a few concrete steps I came up with.
Aug. 2022
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