Stop with the scapegoating and the victim blaming

So, I'm getting a little tired of certain types of comment around here.  Though they're relatively infrequent, they are the antithesis of the spirit of this blog.  If you're not making them, this post is not directed at you.  But I think we can all learn something here.

First, if you wish to blame our nation's problems of poverty and inequality on immigrants, particularly undocumented workers, I suggest you educate yourself on immigration and the real causes behind poverty and inequality in the U.S. before you look around for a scapegoat.  I will try to devote some posts to this issue in the future, but keep in mind that our economic and social policies of the last thirty years have favored the very wealthy and corporations at the expense of the American worker.  As economist Jared Bernstein wrote in an economic analysis of 2000 poverty and immigration data:

immigration’s role appears to have been overstated at the expense of other, more fundamentally economic factors [influencing the economic trends of the 1990s]. Both New York and California, for example, saw larger than average increases in inequality over the decade, and the incomes of the wealthy pulled far ahead of those at the middle and the bottom of the income scale.  In many States, the increase in inequality meant that the growth that did occur went disproportionately to those at the top of the income scale, leaving those at the lower end more vulnerable to poverty, regardless of their status as natives or immigrants.

Now, maybe you're like my low-wage uncle whose employer has slowly fired most of his native born workers and replaced them with Brazilian immigrants, many undocumented.  Maybe you feel like your (already under-the-table) wages are suffering as a result.  Why then, do you blame your co-workers, who still earn less than you and are struggling as much if not more than you, and not your employer who breaks the law and takes advantage of all his/her working poor employees?  When we look around us, it is much easier to turn on one another than channel our anger at behind-the-scenes, hostile, anti-worker, corporatist policies.  And there's always a group to blame: immigrants, African-Americans, the poor, women, etc.  It's intolerable and completely at odds with the work we need to do to reduce poverty.

To that end, please stop with the poor people are to blame by making bad choices schtick.  I applaud those of us who have overcome poverty or economic hardship, who have benefited from access to loans or education or a helping hand and made the best of those opportunities through intelligent, informed decision-making.  No doubt you deserve tremendous support for your success, and hopefully you can use your experiences to guide others who are struggling like you once did.  But spare us all the "I did it, why can't you?" condemnations of your low-income neighbors.

Take this story on a woman struggling to escape poverty, which takes us back to Detroit (my emphases):

One of the places I stopped in my travels was Detroit. Michigan has the highest unemployment in the country, passing 10 percent last month. Detroit has been hit even harder. Yet, reports the Times, the state cut its welfare rolls over 13 percent last year. In Michigan rules, like those in many states, public assistance is tied to work. A 30-year-old woman I met, lets call her A, lost her job as a teacher's assistant in a Detroit area public school, and then lost her TANF [cash assistance] because she was no longer working. Now she has neither job nor welfare, and she's facing foreclosure with her four children. I heard dozens of examples like this. People who couldn't find a job, or even a decent volunteer opportunity, without childcare, transportation, and more help than the new welfare system provides.

Should she be blamed or penalized for her current fate?  Really?  Or should we be considering the budget cuts for public education and other public programs in MI?  There's no question that our individual initiative, decision-making and priorities factor heavily into the lives we lead.  But all of us are free to make good and bad decisions, and we will all do both repeatedly over the course of our lives.  There is little we can do to control one another's behavior, and if you've ever been a smoker, you know how frustrating it is to have the government legislative your behavior.

What I am concerned with here, and I expect from my fellow anti-poverty advocates, is a focus on the uneven playing field that disproportionately rewards the better-off, whites, men, the young, the abled, etc. with with better and more job opportunities, housing options, educational choices, etc.  This is our focus at this blog: why do we spend so little money on affordable housing in this country, on renters, on public education, on employment training, on healthcare?

The 2009 poverty thresholds have been released: a mom with two kids can only earn $18k/year ($1,500 per month, or $375/week, or $53/day, or $6.25/hour working 60 hours/week) to be considered living in poverty.  A single guy must earn less than $11,000/year (or $900/month or $225/week or $3.75/hour for a 60-hour work week) to be considered living in poverty.  If you don't think that's the problem, but would rather blame that working mom or that young man, perhaps this site isn't the right place for you.

But I think it is, because there's a lot we can learn together here.

I will be out for most of the day today, so please use this post for reflection and comment.  I'd love to hear from you.