Responsibility of Poverty

02/23/15

I think about those in poverty pretty regularly. I myself have never really been in poverty, but have been in the unique situation of having weathly grand parents and poor parents. The sort of thing where I had every current generation gaming system, but where my bed was a couch and/or bed right outside the kitchen for a good chunk of time.

Right now, I'm most-certainly middle-class territory, which coming from my background isn't that weird. I had plenty of resources available to me to succeed. Smart people, good mentors, never having to worry about a meal, never needing to support others during my younger years, being taken seriously on needing to learn my own way, being given both need and merit scholarships even though perhaps I didn't really deserve either.

I'm saying I had plenty of help. A lot of people have told me I worked hard and I earned it, but I really don't feel that way. Yeah, I did what was asked of me, and did it well a lot of the time, but I was always in a situation where I could do what I was told or I was given good resources to figure it out.

Only one time in my life did I feel lost for a long period of time. It was during a period of time at work, and I didn't struggle my way out successfully. Mind you, I tried, but I was trapped in a place and the only way out was to get help. Luckily, I was in a place where help would be offered when asked, and I got it, and things have improved strongly since then.

And so I take issue with a sentiment I see or hear or infer often. That the poor need to work hard and pull themselves out of poverty. It comes across to me as if you were telling people locked in a cage it was their job to figure a way out, when people outside the cage have the keys and are much better equiped to free those encaged.

Those in poverty do not have the time, the money, or the training necessary to no longer be in poverty. They literally do not have the resources necessary to escape. They are trapped: mind, body, and soul. They are told it is their fault and almost always it is not. But even if it were, why should it still be their responsibility to escape a prison so cleverly designed to be unescapable without outside intervention?

And make no mistake, those that do or did have the resources to escape had help, and they are either not in poverty or well on their way to no longer being in poverty. They are held up as proof that it's possible. I contend they are the exception that prove the rule. If you can escape, you have. Why wouldn't you?