Katrina & Poverty
Disasters remind us, even if for a brief period of time, of the razor’s edge many poor Americans live on. I was recently reminded of the Gospel story where Jesus has his feet washed with expensive perfume by a woman who the disciples then heartily rebuked, reminding her that the money spent on the perfume could have been used to feed the poor. Jesus responds to his disciples by reminding them that he is with them only for a short time, but the poor will always be with them. Jesus’ words are chilling not because of what they say concerning his fate, but about how little the reality of our world has changed with respect to the poor and disadvantaged. Public figures throw out phrases like the “war on poverty” and “no child left behind,” yet the poor are still with us.
The best of America’s intentions were revealed in the weeks after Katrina through donations, volunteers and communal reallocations of resources to help those in need. While this is necessary to help these people now, the lasting question is what are we going to make of this opportunity to address the root causes of poverty, even if only for the limited group of people in New Orleans? Are we going to take the fifty billion dollars from the government and rebuild their homes? Other than a new home, what about the reality of these peoples’ lives will the government money alter? Will the money simply start up the cycle of poverty again, only this time with field trips to Houston juxtaposed on the normal course of events of their lives? Liberal voices have rightfully argued that the money is necessary, a perspective consistent with their view that society has a collective responsibility to help pull people out of poverty. Conservatives respond that while the money is necessary, poverty is inherently an internal individual issue that money alone will not address. Moderates believe any solution to poverty must be a balance between stressing individual responsibility and addressing those social systems that serve to prevent people from breaking free of the cycle of violence and poverty too many citizens like those in New Orleans live within.
In the last week the Christian organization Sojourners has issued a public petition for people to sign. It has two main points, the first being a personal commitment to pray, volunteer and give whatever you can to help those in need, the second part being to push for the government to stop economic policies geared solely towards the rich while short changing poor people of programs and money they desperately need. These are both important points, and we will return to them later; however, they are reminiscent of things already said and done. It is impossible to hear these words and not wonder why this time the result is going to be any different. At root is a deeper question; namely, what do we have to do in order to really break the cycle of poverty? Money is not enough; caring is not enough; new programs are not enough.
It has been suggested that the problem with poverty is that the rich and middle class really do not care about the plight of the poor. There is certainly some truth to this. In fairness, it is easy to mistake someone who does not care, for an individual who does not know how to actually be a part of making a difference in the lives of the impoverished. The reality is that an answer to the plague of poverty does not present itself easily; consequently, this difficulty makes dialogue over it innately hyperbolic, punitive and terse. Conservative and liberal ideology is each right about one dimension to their respective political orthodoxies; however, each is also wrong about a large part of the motives behind those who advocate their positions.
For conservatives, the emphasis on escaping poverty is private responsibility. No solution to any social ill can overlook the necessary dimension that is based on individual responsibility and must begin with a person setting himself against his deficiencies, as well as a culture that may be preventing him from bettering himself. But for too many conservatives, the ideology of individual responsibility overlooks the realities of poverty, specifically the social realities. These include poor people who can not access public opportunities for an education without public assistance, those who lack skills and in attempting to locate work, can manage to only find below subsistence jobs. Perhaps most importantly, conservative ideology lacks a certain gracious spirit, forgiving attitude and understanding mindset for those who have made mistakes and have no family safety net to fall back into. Most of us, yours truly especially, have made mistakes that our families helped us recover from. Without any support network, or with a support network that has made its own mistakes that proved unrecoverable, how do you simply “take responsibility” and “make things better”? The short answer for most people is that you can not, and the cycle renews itself as you succumb to the implications of your mistakes.
Liberals, unfortunate for the depths liberalism holds the potential to explore, do not emphasize individual responsibility as critically as do conservatives. Liberal ideology tends to emphasize various social constructs that structurally keep individuals from accessing those opportunities people of additional means can access including the basic components to an education. These opportunities are in some cases open to all, but poor people may not be aware of them, or may be unable to gain access to them because they lack the means to transport themselves or participate in whatever minimal costs are associated with being involved.
When I think about the cycle of poverty, inevitably my mind runs to a volunteer program I worked in that helped inner city families. One woman’s story, Gayle, stands out to me: she lived with her three children, each of which was well behaved, disciplined and doing well in school. Their apartment was small, with only one bedroom where the two boys shared a bed. The older daughter and mom slept in a pull-out bed and sofa. No real kitchen existed from which to feed the family. The few possessions in their sparsely furnished apartment were aged and obviously well worn. Gayle, a classic single mom, wanted to get off welfare and had taken a job at White Castle in order to do so. White Castle was the best opportunity she could find not only because of her limited skills, but because she had to rely on public transportation in order to find work. As a consequence of the limited the part of the city she could look for work in, the only job opportunities for her were the typical low paying, non-benefit status service industry options. Taking this job meant the only work available to her was in the evenings when her children were home. Keep in mind the job did not pay enough to live on or even provide health insurance for her or her children, but she took the job and stayed at it. The most immediate consequence was not her losing precious time overseeing her children’s development and school work, but leaving her children in a dilapidated apartment that had a history of being broken into.
Liberalism understands Gayle’s plight both emotionally and substantively. The substantive part of liberalism is its means of addressing unequal access to supposedly communal property and rights all Americans have. Conservatives hold Gayle up as an example of the individual effort necessary to escape poverty without acknowledging the realities of her impossible situation, the inevitable cycle of poverty she and her children live within and can not escape. Liberalism better addresses these realities than does conservatism because it recognizes the practical realities of poverty, specifically those social issues and systems that keep the poor impoverished. Liberalism is right when it focuses on schools, public housing, job corps, welfare and health care issues for poor people. At its best, liberalism forces us to look into the mirror and ask whether or not we care about the poor. For many, the answer to this is no.
This poverty of spirit is the primary deficiency of conservative ideology when talking about the poor. While conservative ideology does tend to overlook social systems that prevent someone breaking free from poverty, its deeper sin is that it struggles to acknowledge that its ideology can easily hide an uncaring spirit towards those in need. For too many within the conservative movement, the emphasis on personal responsibility is really a means of distancing themselves from the idea they may personally need to have some involvement in the question of poverty if America is to ever seriously address its problem. Ideology then shadow-boxes with the reality of people who do not care about the plight of the poor.
Similarly, the ideology of liberal social engineering can present a similar front for people who are willing for society-at-large to be involved in issues they are personally unwilling to be. Liberalism many times is unwilling to acknowledge those parts of the solution to poverty that are ultimately related to individual responsibility.
It is impossible to talk about poverty in America without touching on the question of slavery. It is indisputable that the American economy, in its pre-industrial agrarian form, owed much of its success to its ability to utilize labor in the form of unpaid slaves in order to build much of the early wealth of the country. For those who would angrily grumble about slavery being long ago in our past, what is true in fact is not true in impact. Yes, slavery has been gone for over one hundred years; however, slavery’s blood brother is racism, a corrosive ideology that prevented several generations of black Americans from accessing the same education and economic opportunities as their white fellow citizens. If we began with an enslaved population intentionally kept uneducated, impoverished and enslaved, and we only addressed the mechanics behind the enslavement, what are we to expect relative to the ongoing problems of a group of people still not educated and still living in poverty? America struggles with an undercurrent of contemporary racism, and conservative ideology harbors many safe places for people who eye black people with suspicion. Any ideology that does not elevate the historical reality of black Americans, internalize those parts of its legacy that are still with us in the form of racism, and seek to address these deficiencies not through apologies but meaningful policies, is an ideology that will insufficiently counter the root causes of poverty.
Conservatives are right to stress individual responsibility and the idea that financial coffers being full for welfare recipients would not somehow make poverty go away. Liberals are right to point out the legacy of slavery and the unequal access to supposedly common goods like education and job assistance prevent people who want to break free from poverty doing so. Conservatives are badly wrong in believing that slavery has no modern-day impact and that any such comments are a form of historical prejudice towards current-day white people who harbor no such animus. Liberals are wrong to point out that individual responsibility is less important than social structure. Where the question of poverty should turn on, but has not yet in America, is the effective means by which we – as a people – can turn our dilapidating inner cities, the broken homes within them, and the vacuum of economic opportunities inside into thriving cultural, familial and economic centers. Until Americans stop baiting the other political side and appreciate what each ideology has to offer the other, until complimentary approaches are focused on at the expense of partisan rhetoric, the question of American poverty will go unresolved and another generation will slip away from us.
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2 Responses to “Katrina & Poverty”
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About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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September 17th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
Ah, but to believe in a “complimentary approach at the expense of partisan rhetoric”, you must believe that today’s Conservatives/Republicans (particularly those in influential positions) have a TRUE desire to eliminate poverty - rather than just “eliminating” poor people - in the same way that Native Americans were once “eliminated”!
Now, you see, I DON’T BELIEVE THEY DO… they’re neo-cons, don’t forget, or “theo-cons”… not Eisenhowers!! It’s NOT the Fifties any more, folks…
Still, good article.
September 19th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Liz - Welcome to the site. Your comments resonate most when seen through Barbara Bush’s most recent quote, as just one example. I spent several years in leadership positions in the Republican party and to be frank, have doubts about the idea that conservative ideology stresses the individual’s responsibility instead of government hand-outs. My experience was that people didn’t really care about the poor. Having said this, I feel the solution to poverty is not only social, it is also individual. But I do not believe the individual can simply create or innovate his way out of poverty. That’s why I believe effectual government has a good answer, but only in concert with private responsibility.