"I found there all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good as myself and just as blond-beast; sailor-men, soldier-men, labor-men, all wrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and hardship and accident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old horses. I battered on the drag and slammed back gates with them, or shivered with them in box cars and city parks, listening the while to life-histories which began under auspices as fair as mine, with digestions and bodies equal to and better than mine, and which ended there before my eyes in the shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit." -Jack London, "How I Became a Socialist"
"You get a hamburger." My father said, speaking to the three of us in the back,, knowing already what the response would be.
"Can I have a happ..."
"No!" He cut me off forcefully. "I just told you what you're getting!"
After my dad started with his and my mom's order, my mom leaned across his body from the passenger seat and interjected "And three happy meals please!"
"We can't afford that." My dad said, his face red and jaws clinched.
"We can this time." My mom said looking back at us with mischievous grin in contrast to her sad and tired eyes.
The fight that ensued was one of the "Big ones." Those fights that are about so many unsaid resentments but made up the miasma in which we lived. The kind of fight that started so many years before and never seemed to end. All night they yelled, they called names, they accused and bit hard at each other with their words.
My sisters and I would hide under our blankets and just silently listen. The small hot and dirty house left hopeless any attempt to escape the shouting. The storm moved from end to end, over and over, until my mom left for her night shift job at the nursing home where she worked part time cleaning rooms and offices. The slamming door was an end to the screaming, but not the fighting... never the fighting.
It's difficult to explain how this scene made me feel then, and how it makes me feel now. With every new understanding that comes with time and experience, a deeper confusion persists. Of course, I understand now, how difficult it could be to explain to your children why they can't have the luxury of a happy meal. Of course, I can understand why a mother might find the irresponsibility of slightly over spending too be too small, if it's for the sake of her children to have something to feel excited about. Children she has always felt had too little in the first place. I can understand the pressure of falling behind on bills, the threats of the utilities getting cut off, the many repairs on the perhaps already too far gone house and car... I can understand how the resentment from this kind of guilt, stress, and embarrassment, over years, can break a bond between two people that would otherwise cherish one another. What has always confused me, is why it had to be this way for us... for anyone.
*****
In 2020, Alabama had a decline in population for the first time since it's population was regularly recorded. The state has the 9th highest teen pregnancy rate, is 47th in education, is 46th in median income, is top 5 in prison population per capita, and the has shortest life expectancy (75.1 years) in the country. A grim string of statistics that is only the tip of the iceberg.
I live in Georgia now. The far more prosperous (though not without it's problems) neighbor state. Seldom do my Georgia friends and relatives miss the opportunity to poke fun of my Alabama roots. Always playfully. "If I didn't like you, I wouldn't pick on you" as the saying goes. I believe them. People in Georgia know there's nothing funny about what's happening to the people in Alabama.
However, it would seem like there are those who do find it kind of funny. Just like my Georgia people, seldom does anyone anywhere let the opportunity pass to crack a joke on Alabama. The slurs they use, the most inhuman accusations of abuse, and describe them only in the most grotesque descriptions.
If poverty doesn't make you resilient, the rind you develop from being the butt of every joke ought to. The adage of "It's funny because it's true" doesn't quite work when the truth isn't funny for those who live it. They aren't doing it because they like us, they're doing it because they think it's funny.
I also know that the poor in Alabama seldom do themselves any favors. The "deep red" state is a stronghold of conservative voters. Deeply religious, anti-science, anti-progress, and anti-immigration voters. And, oh yeah, they are bunch of violent racists.
Alabama was the last state in the union to officially end it's laws prohibiting interracial marriages (in the year 2000). As recently as July 2021, a city councilman in Tarrent City, AL, referred to the black city mayor as a house n-word. He has refused calls to resign. The black population of Alabama (roughly a 1/3rd of the population) is nearly twice as poor by median household income. And this is just recent memory. The history of race relations in Alabama includes black children blown up in churches, lynchings, and so many more terrors it would take a lifetime to learn and chronicle them all.
Alabama, in 2019, had to pass a law to allow marriage licenses to be filed without first being approved by a probate judge, because about half a dozen judges were refusing to approve any marriage licenses in their counties because some of those licenses may go to same-sex couples. The law required judges only to sign affirming that the marriage licenses were filed in their counties... presumably this workaround kept the judges square with Jesus...
So it isn't unthinkable, that these poor people are deserving of the ridicule they receive. At worst, it's just shitty to do.
Poverty is genetic. A study by Northwestern University estimates that poverty becomes embedded in about 10% of the human genome. Though, this is hardly surprising. Education, diet, sanitary living conditions, climate... we all understand that these things effect the genome, and we all understand that the poor must suffer the worst of them. Poverty is as immutable as eye color.
******
I was kept home from school for three days in the 5th grade. I wasn't suspended, I was a well behaved child (I know, I know, where did it all go wrong?!) I was kept home because of poverty. More specifically, I had lice. Even among the poor, having lice is an especially gross, and therefore humiliating, kind of poor. My mother "cured" my condition by speading mayonnaise in my hair and tying a plastic bag over it for hours. These kinds of home remedies are a necessity, not a bootstrap effect.
My dad had a job interview that day. At the time, he was working night shift at Wal-Mart. He had been looking for something new for more than a year, but in Alabama, most jobs are really just more of the same. But this job was for a sales position. I don't remember what he was supposed to be selling, but he felt like he could do it and make more money working on commission. The timing is always bad when you're poor. The night before, someone tried to steal our car from the Wal-Mart parking lot while my dad was at work. The steering wheel cover was ripped off and the wiring pulled up and rat nested across the dash. My dad hardly had time to be furious about it, because he came home from his shift and put on his best "Sunday meeting" attire. He couldn't shower for the same reason I probably contracted lice. Our hot water heater was broken and to bathe in something other than cold water, you would have to heat the water up in a pot on the stove and poor it into the tub over and over. It was a lengthy process.
He did have time to chuckle at how ridiculous I looked. "Your witch-doctor grandmother said that would work." He said under his breath.
My dad put on his newest polo shirt he got from the Dollar General and his cleanest black slacks. Unshaved and unwashed, my mother tried to boost his confidence, "You look peachy keen!" It was a precious moment. A reminder that it wasn't always "any port in a storm." But only a moment.
We got in the car and my mother freaked. "Did they catch who did this?!"
"Baby... I already told you everything I know. Please! Don't stress out about this!"
"Why would they break into to car but not take it?" I asked out of legitimate curiosity.
"Probably couldn't get it started." My dad said with a slight chuckle.
It would make sense. It took several attempts at cranking to get the car started by this point. You had to know the pattern, or else the starter would get too hot and stop turning over. I knew the secret pattern, because my dad would let me stay up at night to go out and get the car started while he got ready for work.
We got to the place the interview was going to happen, and the parking lot was full of applicants. We screeched to a stopped in the middle of the parking lot right after turning in, and sat shocked. It was only for a second, because the shock was broken by the horn from an impatient car behind us also trying to get in... Probably another applicant.
We found a spot, somehow, close to the door. My parents sat silent for a moment looking straight ahead, eyes wide. Then, my mom reached in her purse and pulled out a piece of gum. "Here, chew it up here for a second then spit it out. Talking with gum in your mouth is gross." My dad took the gum, popped it his mouth and chewed. They both just starred at each other with worry, but wouldn't say it. Giving words to worries was unnecessary and unhelpful. He spit the gum back in the wrapper and kissed her cheek as she wished him luck. He got out and took his place in the crowd.
He stuck out so much, it was almost comical. He had the longest hair, the most underdressed, and was noticeably thinner than the rest. He was also one of few to be empty handed. Some had folders, some had briefcases. My old man, had nothing.
A man came out a little later and made some kind of announcement which apparently dismissed several applicants as they started to slowly disperse. Whatever was said, it didn't apply to my dad because he stayed put, just him and couple others. The man shook my dad's hand and they walked in the building together.
"I hope none those out there get hired." My mom said as we looked the rest over together.
"Why?" I probably could have guessed only one position was open, but I thought the wish for someone to not get a job was mean.
"They don't need it." She answered.
She was probably right. The other men were in pressed suits with clean faces and whatever car left that was theirs... was nice.
My father wouldn't get the job.
*****
When you're poor, few things seem more true than "image is everything." Poverty has a look that we all know. Faded, stained and ill fitting clothes. Shoes that have been more than once walked through. Do it yourself hair cuts, or subtle attempts to disguise shaggy and greasy hair. Cheap make-up hastily put on, or usually, touched up from the day before after sleeping in it. Unkempt fingernails at the end of scared dirty fingers. Thin and twisted bodies with hobbled gait from hard labor and cramped sleeping spaces.
Poverty has a smell too. Body odor poorly masked by cheap perfume. The clingy smell of unwashed pets on likewise unwashed clothes. A sour mildew stench from rotten carpet and furniture. Cigarettes and alcohol on the breath.
And poverty has sounds. A growling stomach. A choking engine and queaky brakes. Labored breathing, deep melancholy sighs, sickly coughing children... and on and on.
"Yeah, they're really mistreated by the system, yet they'll spend their money on iPhones and nail spas!"
"There is no historical system of oppression of white people!"
"Are you really going to compare the struggles of white people to other races?!"
"Class Reductionist!"
People who say these things are willfully blind to the image of poverty. Take a break from eating, showering, and sleeping for three days before a job interview and tell me how it goes. Spend a few months white-knuckling your way through your finances, then make an attempt to break the loneliness in your life and try to arrange a date... I'm sure most people wouldn't care if you showed up at the end of your rope and pockets turned out. Right?
If you're willing to try it, you'll probably find out what poor people have learn quickly in life. No one gives a fuck about you. Then you'll understand the resentment that comes like a cold gripping hand around the heart. You'll tell yourself, "I don't need them!" You'll mimic back the same coldness, the same impatience, and the same disgust you feel haunt you in the words people use to describe you. You'll embrace being that creature.
You will become "the other." The social Ismael, a "wild ass of man; whose hand is against everyone, and everyone's hand against him."
Go and interpret the many promises and hand wringing over "inner cities" from politicians then. Hear about the struggles of everyone else but you. For you, there is not concern, but guilt. There is no hopeful message of a bright new era, only shame.
You'll teach these behaviors to your children too, assuming that you love them that is. Otherwise, they'll hate you for not preparing them for it. You'll tell them, "You're white. No one cares what breaks your back, your heart, or your mind." Maybe not in so many words, but they'll understand it that way.
Of course, we ought not make excuses for deplorable behavior. Racism, homophobia, antisemitism, sexism, and all the worst expressions of hatred and fear. These behaviors are often the result of a kind of social "learned helplessness." A giving up on shooting that narrow gap out of inevitable misery. That all there is to life is to poorly live, poorly die, be poorly buried, and nobody cry.
Here is one last thing to consider. Consider, what if, these people aren't the monsters their behaviors suggest. Truly, some of them are. But those monsters exist everywhere at once, and aren't unique to the poor whites. But what if they are actually decent people, by and large. Hard working, honest, and sensitive. What if I told you, they would be happy to have a drink with you? That they'll laugh loud at your jokes, and wince their eyes and shake their heads at your pains and struggles and wish in earnest they never happened to you. That they'll offer you whatever you think you are materially without from their meager possessions. That they will trust you, without knowing you, with their deepest concerns and fears. You might believe me, but think they'll only revert back to their hatred when they're back in usual company. You'd probably be right too. Poverty, and it's effects, don't end by way of polite conversations. All I'm asking is that you consider treating them with the same dignity you expect them to show. Because if you listen to them carefully, they aren't expecting their poverty to be the problem of everyone, they just don't want to be laughed as they try to survive it.
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