Last Friday, Dr.
Matthew Smith of the Communication Department and I presented about the profession
of journalism at Lincoln Elementary school, a school situated in the area with
the highest concentration of poverty in the Springfield area. Ninety-nine
percent of the students who attend qualify for three free meals per day from
the school.
The event was
organized by the Springfield Promise Neighborhood, a collaborative effort on
the part of various local and national non-profit organizations to end poverty.
The Promise Neighborhood is mostly staffed by AmeriCorp VISTA members, who are
typically recent college graduates; in fact, a few of the VISTAs who helped organize
this event are Wittenberg alums. The event was called “Career Day,” and we — along
with various other professionals — were tasked with illustrating how some of
the skills the children had were transferable to professions or careers, and to
familiarize them with the abstract concept of college, but in a tangible way. Ultimately,
the event served the utility of pressing these children — who inhabit
materially poverty — to think about and normalize notions of potential careers
and collegiate paths in order to, as the organizers described it, “break the
cycle of perpetual poverty.”
As a
first-generation college student — in fact, I will be the first college
graduate in both my immediate and extended family — from a working-class
family, I fully understand the utility and importance of this exercise. Indeed
my parents used a similar tactic with me. That is, at an early age, they
situated me within a clique of middle-class friends who were sure to attend
college in order to solidify college in my mind, in order to make college not
only a possibility — but a defined, and perceivably inevitable characteristic
of my future.
Indeed, it was
because of this that made my presentation Friday very personal — and even more
fulfilling. I’m infinitely glad that I was able to participate in an exercise
that helped me.
However, even as
someone who greatly benefited from these practices, I find them problematic in
some capacity.
More
specifically, I think these types of exercises play into this pervasive belief
that poverty is an issue of culture, of work ethic, of even choices. As the
logic follows, to cure poverty, we must point folks to the right choices,
instill a stringent work ethic, and create a culture of success, hard work, and
— as a result — prosperity.
But, as I’ve
blogged before, poor people do not need inspiration, or a higher sense of
culture and professionalism. People who are materially poor need resources, and
resources only — and to suggest otherwise is to 1) commit an intellectual
falsity; 2) perpetuate the pervasive pejorative, “culture of poverty” ideology
espoused by many; and, 3) as a result of these last two, curtail the progress
of solving poverty in terms of more
fairly distributing resources.
Certainly, the
Promise Neighborhood is doing great work, and they have to work within the
paradigms of structural issues, which includes a lack of access to resources.
What they are doing is better than nothing; and, quite frankly, I’m sure that
if they had the resources needed to eradicate poverty — they would end poverty
in a heartbeat. In fact, as mentioned before, I even profited greatly from the
techniques they’re using.
But I am an
anecdotal example, and I was particularly fortunate that my father had a
relatively stable job that paid just well enough to adequately support our
family. I also never had to face structural and/ or interpersonal racism and
sexism. Other folks are not as fortunate as I was. Though thinking about a
career in the future can be helpful, what these folks really need are
resources. That would “break the cycle of poverty.”
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