It is time we hit the reset button on poverty.
It seems we have taken this notion that “there will be poor always” a bit too far. We have allowed a doubt to creep into our consciousness that declares poverty is normal – that people going to bed hungry, if they have a bed at all, is part of some master plan.
We accept it. It’s convenient. The quote “There will be poor always” is understood as “There is nothing I can do about it…”
The stigma of being poor has targeted all immigrants to this country. And it has been the legacy of far too many Blacks and Native Peoples. A belief that the accumulation of wealth was an outgrowth of divine right, justified the use and abuse of human beings deemed as “poor” or needy. Our entire economic system is based on the assumption that “there will be poor always”, and pits human against human in a race to the top.
It is time we hit the reset button on poverty.
We have allowed the loathing and self-loathing that springs from the label of “poverty” to take hold of us. And with this sickness we now publicly declare the poor to be lazy and undeserving. Churches give with one hand and ask for allegiance with the other. And the government seems to have forgotten its responsibility to its citizens.
So what if we recognize that our assumptions are based on fallacies? What if we understand poverty to be a concept designed to help a few and to divide the many? What if we unshackle ourselves from the systems that are little more than slavery and adopt new visions and new pathways of cooperation that can remove poverty from our lives?
Some of the greatest wisdom and the sweetest kindnesses have come to me from those labeled “poor”. Perhaps it is time to allow humanistic truth to re-emerge. If one of us is poor, we are all poor. And accumulation of wealth is not an indicator of success. We have been chasing the wrong story.
Our community is listed as one of the poorest in the state. We have a chance to prove statistics wrong. Let us find ways to share. Let us find ways to help one another.
This piece aired on WDRT Community Radio on the two minute commentary, “Consider This”, scheduled every Thursday at 5:28 pm CST.
let kindness win 