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John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

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Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#201

Post by saalweachter »

vacri wrote: post #124
saalweachter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fan of finding your local food pantry and helping out / donating there. Most always need volunteers. Depending on the place, it can either be more effective to donate money or food. Some places have affiliations with larger collecting centers which just charge the individual pantry handling (usually something like $0.10 / lb) for food; if a place doesn't, they might prefer food donations because otherwise shopp…

> Most always need volunteers. Depending on the place, it can either be more effective to donate money or food. It should be noted that some charities are drowning in unskilled labour, and that folks shouldn't take it personally if they're turned away. Help in some other way, like you say, with money or food. A friend of mine offered to volunteer at a nearby charity and was miffed that they turned her away since she…

Yeah, food pantries especially are bespoke operations, and you really just have to find one near you and talk to them to find out what they want or need. Some will be territorial and not want non-eg-church-members volunteering, others will be thrilled to have community involvement. Some won't need volunteers for distribution, but will be glad to have younger labor to help with food pickup - picking up a literal ton of food and carrying it up stairs is a lot of work. Some places might not need help right now but will in a different season, as volunteer schedules change. They might also need help of varieties beyond the obvious - management, like you said, or accounting or network-building (eg, finding other sources of donations, like groceries or farm co-ops) or web development/social media management.

Even if they don't need more volunteers on the regular, most places won't mind if you join a couple of shifts, just to get a feel for how they operate.

Ultimately, you just have to find a place and start talking.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#202

Post by namlem »

emodendroket wrote: post #168
gerbal wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt.…

I don't want to minimize racial discrimination, but telling poor people about their white privilege seems not all that different from conservative finger-wagging about how American poverty isn't "real" poverty. Also, even if you only looked at white people American police shootings are at a much higher rate than comparable countries.

White privilege is a bad term. Trevor Noah once said that in South Africa, they call it the "black tax," which I think is a much better term. It's not a benefit that's conferred onto white people, it's a cost that imposed on non-white people.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#203

Post by beingpoor »

beingpoor wrote: post #129

Being lower middle class is using a HN throwaway account because risking to be linked to this purge doesn't help at all. Being lower middle class is 4.5h of daily commute to public college (despite having best grades in your high-school) while being told all the time that you're a priviliged. Being lower middle class is your friend suggesting to use his adress on your CV. Being lower middle class is hiding your homet…

Being lower middle class is that place where nobody helps you with anything. You're too rich to get help from state, and too poor to have any easy money like rents, interests, whatever. Being next to the poverty threshold it's a terrible place to be.

Being lower middle class is to know that a friend, to be able to get some state money during college, pretended to live with a grandmother without his parents help and regretting not having done the same.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#204

Post by archagon »

emodendroket wrote: post #168
gerbal wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt.…

I don't want to minimize racial discrimination, but telling poor people about their white privilege seems not all that different from conservative finger-wagging about how American poverty isn't "real" poverty. Also, even if you only looked at white people American police shootings are at a much higher rate than comparable countries.

Privilege is not a moral judgement. It is a sociological concept. Without the word “privilege”, a different word, or a longer phrase, will have to be used. Ultimately, the concept of privilege is a tool for good, intended to help bring people up. Republican finger-wagging, on the other hand, is used to maintain the status quo.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#205

Post by wonderwonder »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #34

Being rich is having a car. Even a scooter. Being rich is being able to visit your family. Being rich is having insurance. Being rich is paying for a monthly phone subscription. Being rich is hot lunches. Being rich is risking losing your job in order to negotiate a better contract with your boss. Being rich is considering having children at all. Being rich is buying alcohol. Being rich is looking at house prices. Be…

I agree with what you have posted. An interesting point though is that poor women become pregnant at a rate far greater than that of their wealthy peers. Pregnancy rates and especially unplanned rates are far higher in 3rd world countries than in first world.

In the US this holds true as well due to a large incidence of unplanned pregnancies among the poor. Your point about the rich considering having children is apt as children are often planned by the wealthy.

I am not passing judgement on either side of the wealth divide but I think it is an interesting study.

A very interesting read: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2011/disparities-uni...

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#206

Post by heurist »

sidlls wrote: post #27
georgemcbay wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the faction of the Republican party that has the gall to call Social Security and Medicare "entitlement" programs and then act like people who rely on them (after paying a lifetime of taxes in) should feel like they are taking advantage of everyone else?

Look, it ain't just the Republicans you identify that screw the poor. Democrats are in some ways worse because unlike Republicans they pretend to care (sometimes). The Democrats' candidate for president was offering Republican style market-based crap like tax breaks for profit sharing and work programs for low cost loans. She didn't even touch on poverty with anything concrete: just words. Their president from 2008-2…

There's a difference between realistic pragmatism and covert antagonism. Due to subversion of various sociopolitical systems in this country, it would be very difficult for the left to win majority power without making tactical tradeoffs. Democrats have been boxed into a corner and are doing what they can to get out. There is an argument to be made for unabashed ideology as an alternative means of propagation, and we started seeing that play out with Sanders vs. Clinton last year.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#207

Post by nnd »

This should be named “Being poor in the USA”. The amount of priveledge bestowed upon you by winning a passport lottery, which provides you with the access to a multitude of opportunities available to you is unprecedented.

From a perspective of someone born in a much poorer country this sounds like a birth-right priveledge taken for granted.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#208

Post by jachee »

arethuza wrote: post #156
Grustaf wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that is unfortunate, but it was preceded, and followed, by breaking the law.

It's not "unfortunate" it's an example of how a clerical error that would be an inconvenience somewhere where public transport is good or if you have enough money to pay for taxis becomes nearly catastrophic if you are poor. He made a mistake, paid his fine and that should have been that.

> He made a mistake, paid his fine and that should have been that.

Exactly. It's not like I even made a choice to drive with a suspended license. This was nearly 20 years ago now, and it happened in a tiny no-red-light town with no computer system. The ticket was for 61 in a 55 on a downhill grade. The dead-tree paperwork that confirmed that I had paid got lost, they had the wrong address on file, and I never found out my license was suspended. Cut to 2 years later and a different blink-and-you-miss it town that happens to be on a border bottleneck is running their weekly roadblock while I happen to pass through, and next thing I know it's "Step out of the car and put your hands behind your back."

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#209

Post by delazeur »

philovivero wrote: post #96
jachee wrote: post #23

I lived this. Being poor is growing up between the trailer park and the dump. Being poor is skipping homework to help repair the $600 car so dad can make it to work tomorrow. Being poor is your mother crying over a $100 invoice for the dental service you just received for the first time in living memory. Being poor is quitting junior college early, because your Pell Grant ran out, and a $12.15/hr opportunity is over…

Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my only meal many days. Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their lives. I'm…

I am also white, and I also grew up poor. I agree that many (though far from all) of the college students who talk about socioeconomic inequality are spoiled brats.

However, you have misunderstood what "white privilege" means: it's not that your life has been easy, it's that the same situations would have been even harder if you had not been white.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#210

Post by chris_wot »

gerbal wrote: post #133
philovivero wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my only meal many days. Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their lives. I'm…

You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt.…

It's sad that many of these points are true. Its just as sad to me that many are not. In your anger, you are overreaching.
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