Black Myth Bustin' Time. (welfare rich)

Great Debates
141

[QUOTE=fessie]
I’m not talking about material privilege, Bricker, I’m talking about what we learn from our parents, our immediate environment, and the media about ourselves and our place in the world.
[/QUOTE]

Part of that environment is surely parental choices about spending.

To my mind, it therefore makes sense to value certain choices over others - namely, those leading to thrift, investment in the future, etc.

In that way, maybe more people will end up “privileged” rather than less - a net gain for everyone. :slight_smile:

142

[QUOTE=fessie]

Take a look at West Chester, Ohio (white suburb of Cincinnati) and Fishers, Indiana (white suburb of Indianapolis). The places where I lived in the '70s and '80s have changed drastically and continue to do so.
[/QUOTE]
Tell us about them.

It’s not a case of back neighborhood or white. There are plenty of areas around here that are racially mixed, and are not the ghetto. Not everyone will be happy to see you move there, but on the whole, there won’t be any problems, no matter what your skin color is.

143

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
Well, I don’t like the phrase “loyalty to one’s home turf”. I am the first to admit that I have a soft spot for poor black people. I know them well. I work with them, I have taught them (ran a daycare center for 5 years) love them, been raised by them. They are me and I am them. *I don’t consider living amongst them to be a bad thing. * Period. If that makes me some kind of street gang minded woman being ‘loyal to my home turf’, then that is fine. But the wording sure does bother me there.

Also, I know this is an unpopular view but I will grit my teeth and stand by it. I *do * believe that hardworking people have an entitlement to some luxuries. Being born poor is hard work. Your parents were poor and uneducated, raised under Jim Crow, or raised under parents who were, and there is great pride in overcoming either oppression or the effects of oppression to educate yourself and buckle down to hard and smart work.

Struggling people have the right to some luxury just like anyone else. I promise you, not getting a fast car is not going to lift these families out of poverty. Is there wiser investments that could be made? Yes. Do I think they deserve to be looked down upon or mocked because they chose a luxury item with the money they worked for? No.
[/QUOTE]

I assure you no offence was implied by the phrase “loyalty to one’s home turf”. Indeed, I’m not actually certain how such a phrase can be taken as offensive, or as having anything to do with “street gangs”. :confused: I simply meant the sense, if you like, of neighbourhood solidarity you describe with such phrases as “They are me and I am them”.

I agree that the presence, or lack, of any particular luxury - such as a fancy car - will not, in and of itself, make the difference between middle-classdom and poverty.

Rather, I would submit, the sense of priorities symbolized by such a purchase, the afore-mentioned “live for today and not tomorrow” attitude that, if taken literally, is not condusive to future financial and social well-being.

There may be all sorts of reasons why such an attitude is common within a particular community. That doesn’t change the cold, hard fact - that some attitudes towards spending are more likely to lead to continued deprivation than others.

To my mind, it is doing no-one a favour to insist that these choices are equally valid, unless one also wishes to insist that continued inequality and poverty is “equally valid”. Me, I’d prefer to see poverty minimized.

144

[QUOTE=Malthus]
I assure you no offence was implied by the phrase “loyalty to one’s home turf”. Indeed, I’m not actually certain how such a phrase can be taken as offensive, or as having anything to do with “street gangs”. :confused: I simply meant the sense, if you like, of neighbourhood solidarity you describe with such phrases as “They are me and I am them”.

I agree that the presence, or lack, of any particular luxury - such as a fancy car - will not, in and of itself, make the difference between middle-classdom and poverty.

Rather, I would submit, the sense of priorities symbolized by such a purchase, the afore-mentioned “live for today and not tomorrow” attitude that, if taken literally, is not condusive to future financial and social well-being.

There may be all sorts of reasons why such an attitude is common within a particular community. That doesn’t change the cold, hard fact - that some attitudes towards spending are more likely to lead to continued deprivation than others.

To my mind, it is doing no-one a favour to insist that these choices are equally valid, unless one also wishes to insist that continued inequality and poverty is “equally valid”. Me, I’d prefer to see poverty minimized.
[/QUOTE]

I think I may have been overly easily offended by the home turf remark. It is a phrase that actually is used amongst gang members (though there are no real gangs in my city).

I, too, wish to see poverty minimized. But there will always be a top, middle and bottom of society, when it comes to income. I think that I will always feel a kinship to those on the bottom.

145

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
I think I may have been overly easily offended by the home turf remark. It is a phrase that actually is used amongst gang members (though there are no real gangs in my city).
[/QUOTE]

There are gangs in Rochester.

146

[QUOTE=fessie]
If you want to attack me personally, the Pit is the appropriate venue.
[/QUOTE]

I was criticizing your posts. I thought that was allowed here in Great Debates, was it not?

Since you self-identify with a privileged background, I think it’s a little ludicrous to be making judgments and/or proclaiming expertise in the various shades of non-privileged upbringing. After all, it doesn’t appear that you have made the effort you want others to strive for, in understanding a different perspective, IMHO, or else you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss what I and others like Bricker have said in this thread.

Still hoping someone will comment on the following:

147

Couple of comments:

Once upon a time, I worked parking cars in a downtown setting, directly across the street from the welfare office. I parked all kinds of cars from complete junk to new caddies - so there are “welfare Cadillacs”. Race/ethnicity wasn’t part of the equation as far as I could tell. What stood out above everything else was how often people were willing to pay the expense for valet parking. I’m talking 20-30 times the cost of onstreet parking, plus tip that rarely came, to save a few minutes of searching. This is called poor decision making and it’s not the result of people being evil. It’s a curse, not something the poor are getting away with.

One of my children has this curse. He can’t afford his rent but he has to have a plasma TV. He drives a nice car that his grandparents gave him, but he can’t seem to keep it regestered. He makes poor choices just like many people who choose what they want NOW over what they should be working toward for the future. And he isn’t black.

Back to the OP… Some people have just enough money to either a) buy a new car or b) “keep Sha’niqua off the welfare line with their 10 kids”. I have a few relatives wo have choosen a new pickup truck over supporting Betty Joe and the kids. Nobody notices those who choose option b.

148

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
There are gangs in Rochester.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that depends on what one considers gangs.

We have lots of murders, but they are not gang related in the sense that most people think of gangs, (semi-organized gangs such as the bloods and crips.)

I said not real gangs because I didn’t want someone to pop up and say, “Dipset are nowhere near in the same ball park with the crips and bloods that we have to deal with here in California.”

So yeah, we do have gangs. I was not trying to rosy up the picture of the particular ghetto in which I reside.

149

[QUOTE=Fozzie Bear]

I’m curious about something, Nzinga, and I don’t mean offense. How do you and your family view those people who leave your neighborhood in search of something “better”? Are they resented? Is there any attitude that would encourage people not to reach too far for “the American dream” because it’s somehow not the way of your neighbors? That if you do, you’re implying that you’re better than the rest?

[/QUOTE]

I can only speak for those that I know, but where I come from it is extaordinarily common. Friday there is a party at my auntie’s house out in Chili, which is a suburb of my city. She lives in a very nice part of that town, and by nice I mean expensive!

All of us from the city swarm that area at these parties and have the whole street rocking with music and barbecue aromas.

We don’t look down on Auntie Christine for moving out. It is just her choice.

I am sure there is jealousy or resentment that some people feel, but I have not noticed it much at all.

150

[QUOTE=fessie]
I’m not talking about material privilege, Bricker, I’m talking about what we learn from our parents, our immediate environment, and the media about ourselves and our place in the world.
[/QUOTE]

Oh.

Well, then, here it’s true I must take myself out of the equation, because I did learn from my parents lessons about financial choices that I took to heart, even though they ran counter my typical kid’s mentality of I-wanna-this and I-wanna-that.

But it doesn’t explain my father. He was an illegitimate child, raised only by his mother with no contact with his father or father’s family. His mother was content to live her life in poverty; when my father began trying to better himself through work and education, not want to spend his life in a sugar cane field or factory, his mother was not supportive; she used to ridicule him by saying mockingly, “El quiere algo. (He wants something).” When she came into money, it was spent immediately, never saved, never invested.

Why is it HE was somehow able to discern the lack of wisdom in spending money recklessly?

151

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Why is it HE was somehow able to discern the lack of wisdom in spending money recklessly?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know - but I wonder if his mother taught him that HE had value and efficacy, from a very early age? Because IMHO that’s the difference between a lot of successful v. unsuccessful people (“successful” being a culmination of a lot of good choices).

I believe that there are studies that show parents of low-socioeconomic status are more likely to use punitive discipline versus positive reinforcement. Here’s an example of one such study (I’ve only skimmed it, but I believe I’ve seen this kind of thing quoted in the media).
Nzinga, I’m sorry if my participation here has hijacked your OP. This is obviously a topic about which I feel strongly, but I clearly have no place answering in your stead and I apologize if I have done so.

152

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
I can only speak for those that I know, but where I come from it is extaordinarily common.
[/QUOTE]

Darn! I am posting from work, and not being careful in my replies.

I meant it is common for poor people to save and plan and work their way out of the ghettoes. It is not common, in my experience, for the rest of us to resent them.

153

[QUOTE=fessie]

Don’t try Wisconsin, either; up there you’re all FIBs. Cheeseheads changed the law years ago so that you have to establish 6 months of residency before applying for any kind of public aid because they were tired of “welfare mamas” coming in from the south.
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Is this really the case? I thought those laws were all struck down as an interference with the constitutional right to interstate travel. Or am I just misremembering that?

154

[QUOTE=fessie]

Nzinga, I’m sorry if my participation here has hijacked your OP. This is obviously a topic about which I feel strongly, but I clearly have no place answering in your stead and I apologize if I have done so.
[/QUOTE]

This whole conversation is far from the point of my OP, which I had not meant as a debate, but more as a gripe and a statement of fact.

So feel free to get whatever you like off of your chest, Fessie. You have a right to your opinion, and I don’t think you have been trying to speak in my stead at all.

155

Around here, most of the guys driving tricked-out cars pumping out bass will be young professional guys (bank tellers, lower retail management, network techs) who still live with their parents. That’s the critical factor, I think - not paying rent or mortgage.

Drug dealers and gangsters generally drive unobtrusive cars, although some hang out at the fringes of the streetracing crowd because it’s a ready market. But here, I doubt one in 5 real gangsters can even drive.

156

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
Darn! I am posting from work, and not being careful in my replies.

I meant it is common for poor people to save and plan and work their way out of the ghettoes. It is not common, in my experience, for the rest of us to resent them.
[/QUOTE]

Interesting. Thanks for the response.

FWIW, and more directly related to your OP, when I’ve heard comments made about “welfare queens” and the like, they were not racially distinct - it was more a matter of what color the poor tended to be in the area you were talking about. Some of this was fueled of course by reports of welfare fraud and sometimes personal anecdotes. My mom for example worked for a time with a woman who made no bones about having multiple SS#'s in her name, on which she was collecting benefits of various types. I suspect that that sort of fraud was a lot easier in the days before computerized records, but the memories still linger and get passed on as the truth even now. People’s perceptions are slow to change.

157

[QUOTE=fessie]
I don’t know - but I wonder if his mother taught him that HE had value and efficacy, from a very early age? Because IMHO that’s the difference between a lot of successful v. unsuccessful people (“successful” being a culmination of a lot of good choices).

I believe that there are studies that show parents of low-socioeconomic status are more likely to use punitive discipline versus positive reinforcement. Here’s an example of one such study (I’ve only skimmed it, but I believe I’ve seen this kind of thing quoted in the media).

[/quote]

Well, inasmuch as my father died in 1985, I can’t pose this question to him. But I can say that every interaction he described with her was not remotely close to the neighborhood of “teaching him he had value and efficacy,” unless by “teaching” you mean “constantly denying that.” That was kind of the point of describing the mocking “El quiere algo,” line I quoted – that he would express his interest in becoming someone, in bettering his lot, and she found that idea unrealistic and funny.

So my question remains. If it’s so inevitable that people not born into privilege will make such poor decisions, then how do you explain my father’s life? And if it’s true that one can be born into squalor rather than privilege and still have the self-discipline and will to make good choices that permit you to get out of the squalor, then why is it inappropriate to expect it of others?

158

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
Darn! I am posting from work, and not being careful in my replies.

I meant it is common for poor people to save and plan and work their way out of the ghettoes. It is not common, in my experience, for the rest of us to resent them.
[/QUOTE]

I’m lilly white, but my grandmother grew up dirt poor - an immigrant stockyard child. She did ok by marrying fairly well. Her sister raised nine kids - they grew up - not in a ghetto, but not under the best possible circumstances. Of those nine kids, seven are OK, and of those seven, six did darn well for themselves. Some put themselves through college, some went the military route, some just have worked hard. There is opportunity to do well, even if you don’t start with advantages. At the same time, grabbing that opportunity takes courage, work, the ability to imagine something different - and it takes more just plain ol’ luck than a lot of “bootstrappers” would like to believe.

Some kids will break a cycle - regardless of what they’ve been “taught” at home - and they’ll break it both directions. Affluent kids who can’t handle money and end up bankrupt aren’t unusual - nor are kids who get disgusted at what their parents teach them and decide to do better for themselves that what they learned at home. For most people, however, what you learn at home is what you mimic out in the world - at least after a while of knowing your parents are wrong about everything.

159

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
I think I may have been overly easily offended by the home turf remark. It is a phrase that actually is used amongst gang members (though there are no real gangs in my city).

I, too, wish to see poverty minimized. But there will always be a top, middle and bottom of society, when it comes to income. I think that I will always feel a kinship to those on the bottom.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I can understand the class kinship feeling (though I do not share it - in my family, we were brought up to believe that kinship was for kin, and family more important than class, creed, nationality, race or any other abstract grouping, and to a large extent I still feel that way).

The difficulty I submit is when class kinship gets in the way of constructive critique of habits and choices that inhibit social mobility.

160

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Well, inasmuch as my father died in 1985, I can’t pose this question to him. But I can say that every interaction he described with her was not remotely close to the neighborhood of “teaching him he had value and efficacy,” unless by “teaching” you mean “constantly denying that.” That was kind of the point of describing the mocking “El quiere algo,” line I quoted – that he would express his interest in becoming someone, in bettering his lot, and she found that idea unrealistic and funny.

So my question remains. If it’s so inevitable that people not born into privilege will make such poor decisions, then how do you explain my father’s life? And if it’s true that one can be born into squalor rather than privilege and still have the self-discipline and will to make good choices that permit you to get out of the squalor, then why is it inappropriate to expect it of others?
[/QUOTE]

Well, I wasn’t sure if the mocking you described cut to his core or was deflected as merely her skepticism or what - who knows? And there’s no telling what kind of mother she was when he was 0 - 3 years old, whether she gave him nurturing at that age that later blossomed into his sense of self-worth (despite denying the ambitions spawned of that self-worth).

I don’t know. Some people are motivated by naysayers, others destroyed by them.

At any rate, I’m not arguing that it’s inevitable that people born into squalor won’t rise above it – but surely you’ll acknowledge there’s a strong correlation between poor parents and poor children.

I think people, all of us, tend to live what we know. Reality isn’t a fixed entity, it’s created out of our beliefs. If one’s reality doesn’t include an awareness of “good” choices, where does one pick it up?

It’s not fair to pretend that we’re all on the same path and judge accordingly.

A better question is, why judge at all? What business is it of our if someone decides to blow their money on their vehicle?

And before you say their bad decisions will mean they’ll be sucking on the public tit next time the economy goes sour, take a good look at all the OTHER bailouts and subsidies offered by our government.