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The Cognitive Dissident

A blog by Ronald P. Thompson, Ph.D.

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Poverty

Stop Blaming the Poor for being Born Poor

On the surface it seems this poster (below) promotes social justice; however, read the last two lines and the moral high ground falls away.

In both the UK and the US, your socioeconomic status as an adult is nearly 100% related to the socioeconomic status of your parents.   This poster clearly blames the poor the fact that it is nearly impossible to climb up from poverty. The poster says “your own poor choices.” is the cause.

Well in all my years working as a social worker, I never once found someone who chose to be born into an impoverished family. I never once found someone who said they chose to enter kindergarten impossibly behind their middle class peers. I never once found someone who was happy their family could not afford the resources that would improve their chances to escape poverty.

Look at the “foreigners” in the poster and ask yourself “What is the chance any of them were born in a slum?”  There are many foreign born professionals in the US and the UK, but virtually all of them were born into wealthy families in their home countries.  To attack the native born poor for”making poor choices” that caused their poverty will not lessen the resentment to foreigners. Instead, it will reinforce the feelings of alienation and anger.  People around the world keep wondering why working class whites in the US are flocking to Donald Trump.  This poster might just be the answer.

We must not blame the poor for being born into poverty, even if we are doing so with a “good cause”

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Of Opportunity

I recall a visit I made a couple of years ago to the home of a low income family with whom I had spent over two full years assisting as a social worker.  I was delivering a donated computer so that the family, which included a bright sixteen year old high school student, a struggling seven year old and their semi-literate mother, could get internet access.  I had promised them a computer because I found that even grade school teachers make the middle class assumption that there is a computer in the home, and high school teachers regularly give homework assignments to be done via the internet; yet, this family, like many with whom I worked, did not have internet nor even a computer.  I had recently received word that the younger child would be retained due to a lack of academic progress.

As I spoke I found myself, not for the first time, putting the burden of the younger child’s success on her older sister. I did not like doing that but the older sister was the only one in the home capable of providing the daily assistance the seven year old needed if she were to have any chance of academic success.  I had, by that point, been pressing this child to help her younger sister for two years.  It wasn’t fair, I didn’t like putting that responsibility on a teenager, but I saw no other hope for her little sister.   I knew full well that it was her mother’s responsibility to provide such assistance, but in this case, a single mother who is low functioning and semi-literate was simply not up to the task.

It is a trite cliché, but true none the less: life isn’t’ fair. Continue reading “Of Opportunity” →

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