Two days ago, I was cruising through a Facebook post and read a teacher’s comments, showing her dislike for the push for charter schools in light of COVID-19 schooling. She wrote a comment questioning Education Savings Accounts and who would keep an eye on how the parents spent the money, and I instantly became offended.
It’s the same ole rhetoric: Parents, especially poor ones, (insert sarcastic tone) can’t be trusted to do the right thing because, surely, they’ve made some awful mistakes to get where they are. I mean, let’s not talk about poverty from a generational viewpoint or from a situational one either, especially in a pandemic. Surely, poor people need to be monitored by middle-class people so they stop playing the system, right? I mean, it can’t have anything to do with the fact that we live in a state where child care is hard to find and afford, non-livable wages are the norm, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that this will change any time soon.
The same people who typically feel this way are usually the ones who don’t want to see the data showing that drug testing welfare recipients has proven to be a waste of money. It’s almost as if they can’t listen to the truth because then they wouldn’t know where to put the loathing of poor folks.
Wars Not Food?
I spend a huge portion of my life fighting back against poor bias. I will never understand why we, as a nation that loves to claim Christian values, would rather pay drug companies millions to drug test welfare recipients than admit that our systems are failing and trapping people in poverty. We’re okay with funding wars but not food for our citizens, and it makes no sense to me. What’s it going to take to change people’s minds?
But here’s an ugly truth; I don’t know what it will take because it happens quickly and stealthy. I have one child who asks to spend the night with a friend or two a year, and I’ve never told her no. I know of the families but don’t really know them. So why this past weekend when my other child asked to spend the night somewhere, did I tell her no? I had my reasons prepared to rattle off when she said to me, “It’s because her friends aren’t poor.”
When her door slammed, so did my mouth. I sat there, trying to deny what she had accused me of, and guess what? I couldn’t. I mulled it over in my head and came up empty every time. After a few minutes had passed, I told her that she could go but felt awkward.
Right before she left, her sister asked why I changed my mind and I told her “because.” But when the other daughter walked into my room and asked, I came clean. I said that I owed her thanks because she checked me, and I obviously needed it. I was very open with her and explained that what she had said hurt my heart because it was an ugly truth that I didn’t even recognize.
Chips and Pop
When did I become the people I’m constantly arguing with about poor people? I mean, I pointed out on a conference call two days earlier that no one checks a middle-class person’s cart to see whether they have chips and pop. I spend my daily life pushing back against hurtful stereotypes, and then, just like that, I am shown that I do the same thing.
I could easily justify the change in my thoughts. I mean, I’m no longer around screaming sirens or drug deals in front of my house. None of us are afraid to walk outside after dark now for fear of who may be out there. Not one police officer has pulled in front of my house and touched the hood of my car here to see if it was hot because it matched a description of a car involved in a drive-by. But the fact of the matter is, I had fallen into the trap of believing that middle-class folks weren’t capable of wrongdoing, which translated to my kids are safer there by default. And my kid pointing that out to me hurt.
I know that safer environments bring safer results. I know that it’s my job to ensure that my kids are safe when they leave my care. But those things shouldn’t be assumed because of someone’s socioeconomic status. I’m grateful for the lesson learned and the fact that someone had enough nerve to point it out to me. And I hope, if it pertains to you, that you are, too.
Stay checking your bias, especially if you don’t have a determined teenager to do it for you.
Onward,
Amy Jo
