Poverty

Please note, this post was originally posted in Oct. 2006 on my other blog: http://lulu-ahimsa.zaadz.com/blog/2006/10


I have been thinking about poverty. The official definition, from dictionary.com, is as follows:
1.
the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence.
2.
deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc.: poverty of the soil.
3.
scantiness; insufficiency: Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies.

This definition seems to lack the violence of poverty… not just violence as in “areas with poverty have higher rates of violence”…but violence of a more institutional variety. Because it seems to me that poverty is more than a lack of things, it is an abundance of things as well. An abundance of hunger; an abundance of houses or apartments falling down; an abundance of concrete instead of grass and trees; an abundance of broken bottles on the playground, and syringes; an abundance of police always arresting and never assisting; and abundance of students with substandard education; an abundance of dreams destroyed; an abundance of people turning their faces, averting their eyes; an abundance of invisibility; an abundance of illness without proper medical care. “Marginalized” hardly seems to cover what it is to live in poverty. Marginalized means “to relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing”. It is a common term used by people to describe the “other”. But people who are poor are not relegated or confined to a lower or outer limit - they live in a different world.The air is less clean. The water often undrinkable. Food is less plentiful, and often less healthy. Poor nutrition weakens the body and as a result people more frequently succumb to illnesses they might have recovered from had they not been malnourished. People who live in poverty have no political power. In fact, the numbers of people living in poverty are growing, giving them a lot of political power, but generally they do not take advantage of it. This world that they live in seems lacking in justice, lacking in compassion, lacking in things that those who are not living in poverty seem to take for granted. I lived in Los Angeles for a long time, where people pay $4- 5 for a cup of coffee two or three times a day at Starbuck's. And not only the rich people do this…many who did were my co-workers. They worked on social justice issues, and worked for NGO's. They were not paid an overwhelming amount. They were not living in poverty. The reason I point this out is that there are, living in Los Angeles, along side the movie industry, the beauty industry, the money makers and shakers, people living in poverty. Sometimes living a block away from each other, rich and poor. No buffer zone. Poor people growing up, looking on the houses of the rich, knowing they can never have what those people have maybe a block away…Struggling. Not to pay $4 for a coffee, but to feed their families. How can these two things co-exist? Is it because we can tell ourselves, if they would just get a job… How many people have I met that say, “Anyone can achieve anything in America”? But this is patently untrue. It is not simply a matter of saying, “Hey, I don't want to be poor anymore” and then magically, with a little effort, poverty has been banished. Because who says, “Hey, I wanna live in poverty!”? Some one responded to me once, “Well, they don't say they want to live in poverty, but their actions indicate unwillingness to do something to get out of their situations. Hey, I grew up poor, and look at me!” Yes, look at you. When do we stop believing in the American dream? When do we realize that we must DO something to change the way the world works. There is a philosophy that underlies the Peace Corps, and it is a good one, I think. If you give a man some food, he can eat today. If you teach him how to farm, he can eat for life. This is a powerful philosophy for me because it means that you shouldn't just give someone money and ease your conscience. You should get involved. Give your time. Use your energy, your knowledge, your love, your compassion, and change someone's life. So many of the ideas I have been learning here in Peace Corps I will take back wtih me, and they are all pretty simple. Connecting with a stranger on the street in Kazakhstan takes on meaning that it wouldn't for me in the US, and it shouldn't. This idea of community based organizing, community outreach - it doesn't have to be done in a foreign country in a foreign language. I can start a girls club in America. I can start an English club in America. I can develop leadership trainings for high school students in America. I can do this kind of grass roots level work in my community at home. I had always done volunteer stuff in America (rape crisis center, Human Rights advocacy, Project Literacy, etc.) But I guess my point is that it doesn't have to be so organized, so big. It can be a lot of small things that have an impact.I once heard a famous quote: “If one of my people is oppressed, then I am oppressed.” I think this is true. “My people”, in this case, means human kind. We are all connected. And until we start realizing how this connectedness translates into the way we chose to live our lives, this system is never going to change…this sick and dying, violent, angry inequitable system will live on, creating agony, hunger, terrorism, oppression, violence, ignorance, greed, despair, and destruction. I came across a website that I think is great, with tons of information and ways to get involved…to DO SOMETHING. Check it out….www.one.org
Peace to you all.
p.s. - in this rant i did not address the issue of race at all, and its impact on poverty. It is a valid issue, as the majority of people living in poverty in the world are people of color. They are living in the southern hemisphere. they are single mothers and children. this topic is huge, and i am not an expert. so many factors contribute to poverty, and the UNDP can tell you about them. I have never seen, on any of their lists, however, “personal will” as a contributing factor. people who say that people who live in poverty are there by choice strike me not only as very ignorant, be unnecessarily cruel. poverty is not a choice. it is the result of inequitable distribution of wealth stemming from a history of colonialism and racism, misogyny and apathy, violence and war, power and control. Those who have, those who have not. You need money to make money, and all the freedom and food and legal advice and education and health and safety and security and time that money can buy you.