<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/06/poverty-us-bootstrapping-self-made>
"One day, I received an email from a stranger about how the poor are
responsible for their own poverty.
It wasn’t the first: I get these missives frequently. These commenters like to
claim that those who are economically on the edge just need to “pull themselves
up by their bootstraps”, and that people who are struggling probably deserve to
do so.
Why? Because these Americans took on educational debt, had children – or even
got divorced. And so angry readers call other people out when they accrue such
debt but also admonish them when they have not had adequate job retraining to
be employable, not seeing the paradox. These audience members may also blame
women for not marrying. And families for living in a city where the cost of
living is high, ignoring that that’s where many of the jobs are. They also like
to critique individuals for actually wanting to do what they love for a living.
Sadly, these blame-mongers aren’t alone: studies have found that many
Republicans think success is something one achieves alone through hard work.
And if we don’t manage to do so, it’s our own damn fault.
I’m familiar with this stream of invective because I’ve spent much of the last
nine years reporting about the falling middle class and working poor and
running a poverty non-profit to boot. But here was something about that
specific comment – in which the writer claimed that we were “all products of
our choices” and had to live with the consequences – that made me decide I
wanted to get to the bottom of this refrain. How did this narrative and its
flip side – the shame and blame of those who are not victors – become writ?"
Via Doug Senko, who wrote "Great article."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
