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With Poverty, Money is Always the Answer
The more time that I spend on the social internet, the more I’m convinced that wealthy and middle class people don’t understand what it means to live in poverty.
In my better moments, when I’m willing to ascribe some good faith to the person in question, I don’t think it’s a failing of empathy. They are trying, as best they can, to put themselves in my shoes, and the shoes of the millions of people like me. But absolutely nothing in their life gives them any sort of understanding for a frame of reference.
For them, there is always some option, some resource, somewhere to turn. Some asset to liquidate, some dearly-prized but not-strictly-necessary thing that they can live without. They can tighten their belts.They can cut away excess. And they think that’s how it is for everybody.
There is a wall in this country, a wall so strong and mighty that it would make Donald Trump salivate more than a big stack of Fillet-o-Fish — the wall between the wealthy and the working poor.
More lately, though, I’m unwilling to trust in the good faith of others. Especially when they’re derisive of my full-hearted belief that money is the answer to my problems — and the problems of anyone living through true and abject poverty.
