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One point that has not been touched upon is that we despise our poor in part because we glorify our wealthy.
It is no secret that very wealthy Americans can quite literally get away with murder. The rules are different for the wealthy. They are also treated FAR differently. We chafe at the notion of a "ruling class," and yet our government serves the whim of the industrialists.
People who are poor may as well be lepers. The majority of Americans feel people are poor because they didn't study hard enough in school, didn't attend college (or picked a useless study like art history), made stupid financial (and personal) choices, and are not particularly intelligent in the first place. The poor are failures at life and the wealthy are winners.
Americans hate the poor people.
We always have, because most Americans live one paycheck short
of being poor. That why.
The rich hate the poor and the middle class.
They are trying to eliminate the middle class, but not realizing
if they do succeed in eliminating the middle class, they won't be as rich either.
The USA will implode on itself.
It's strange, and hard to watch really....
...We chafe at the notion of a "ruling class," and yet our government serves the whim of the industrialists.
Every government, in any nation, at any point in the history of civilization, was primarily concerned with the wealthy. This is a basic law of nature. Government officials are recruited from the upper classes, and the cadence of government functioning is primarily influenced by those classes. America is no different. What is different is our ingrained illusion of equality and "We the people".
I have lived in very low income neighborhoods with the highest crime rate. I was clean, and my house was clean. I could have been very happy living there with such a low cost of housing and transportation.
However, it was the other poor people who made my life miserable. Often times they smell bad. They don't keep their living space or themselves clean. Why? What does being poor have to do with picking up trash outside your house? And who wants to walk by a bunch of teen guys with their pants sagging playing basketball all day long? Or men hanging out in front of the liquor store? And why keep an old washing machine outside your house in the front lawn?
Why are the schools failing in those neighborhoods? It's not lack of funding. It's bad students!
The poor America hates should include blue color types (even if they are highly compensated). America is deeply socially segregated society of status. Climbing up the status ladder is pretty much the only meaning and purpose, the only measure of your worth, the only thing that keeps society of the competing atoms from collapse. Failure to move up the ladder will affect all aspects of your life whether you use social assistance programs or not.
American working class is a sorry lot in general, unsatisfied status anxiety being reason #1, working types literally self-destruct because of the low status and no hope of moving up. How insane is that? Ironically, it's the working class (in my opinion) who "hates" the poor the most. Obviously, there is great deal of propaganda in the air linking deteriorating plight of the working types with liberals and welfare cheats (despite arithmetic idiocy of the claim), but most importantly "the poor" provide working types with reference points to measure their relative "success" against. You got to have somebody below you in the pecking order of life to make your life meaningful and successful.
We can discuss (still existing) attitude differences between USA and other countries, but we should move the discussion to History forum. World Americanizes warp speed.
We like Duck Dynasty, so I don't think that's true.
Lots of middle class people like Jerry Springer show (why? to feel better about their lot mostly) it doesn't mean they are buying a property next to a trailer park. Being blue color in America is a major stigma of failure, that's a fact of American life. Most importantly, blue color types stigmatize themselves and they self-destruct relatively early leaving all that money they've paid into social security for the office types who love Duck Dynasty and Jerry Springer shows.
They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times [/i]
This passage appears in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
When I was younger, I lived in poverty for a few years. There were times I was fearful I would end up on the streets and lived off baloney sandwiches and mac and cheese for months. I was in a rut and I did blame myself for my situation, but more importantly, I didn't blame anyone else for it and I still don't.
What annoys me about some poor people and their so-called advocates like Kurt Vonnegut is the sense of entitlement so many seem to have to other people's wealth or charity.
For my own situation I realized it didn't matter who's fault it was or who was to blame. That was negative thinking that got me nowhere. I had to get up off my duff and do something. Fortunately, I am living much better now and am grateful for what I have and for those who helped me along the way.
It is very difficult to look past vivid personal experience, and value sociological data higher than what you've seen with your own eyes. Logically, you understand that your own perceptions are bound to be biased; they are still more powerful than words and stats.
I work in downtown Philadelphia. I have witnessed and observed very young mothers describe how they jump to the head of the line for new construction low income apartments. They openly admit that they are uninterested in working full time, because the combined benefits that they receive (Section 8, food stamps, CHIP for the kids, intermittent Medicaid for them, LIHEAP, several others) exceed the money that they would make working. And yes, a good percentage do wear expensive clothes and put a lot of money into grooming.
This stuff isn't a myth. Claiming that it is a myth really damages credibility. We aren't all spoiling to bash poor people; we aren't embellishing. There are enough extreme examples to make that unnecessary.
Then you stack that with the fact that there are a good chunk of Americans who do rise above their beginnings by dint of brains and working a lot of hours... human nature is not going to allow most of them to pretend that they have done no better and earned no more than those who truly choose not to work. I am the first woman in my family to graduate from high school, not to mention college. I lived my first year in a rat infested trailer in deep East Texas. I had a whole lot working against me - the sole positives were my innate intelligence, and not being born a minority.
What? It's true. The only reason I mentioned it was that it gives me an pretty good advantage in life. I received big chunks of scholarship money to good schools because of my academic performance and could have gone to my state school for free just based on my SATs. It enabled me to win a nice chunk of change on a game show. It's caused me to become the "go to" person for many of my relatives and friends in times of crisis because it's made me an excellent problem solver.
I have relatives who are equally smart, but their intelligence was never nurtured by their parents, and they had a much harder time in life.
And while my IQ is pretty damn high, I don't put too much stock in it for most things. But it has made my life infinitely easier. And I know that whatever gets thrown at me, I have the ability to land on my feet.
I think those who do not try to better their situation are the one's who are looking for a handout and do not want to do the actual work it takes to succeed.
Other's are in a situation that may prevent them from being able to make any changes in a short period of time.
It is hard to say how one gets into and stays in poverty. Some are born into it, others lose everything they had and have to start over.
Some of it is bad choices, some of it is environment, drugs, alcohol, gambling, physical limitations, mental limitations.
I know a variety of people from all financial levels and no one I know treats those who are not financially successful any differently than those who are.
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