“Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on me. And shame on each and every one of us who haven’t rattled the windows of these buildings with cries of outrage at a government that thinks their office furniture is worthy of $40,000 a year and families and children aren’t.”
That’s when she took a breath. And then …
“I’m not asking you to apologize for your privilege, but I am asking you to see past it.”
As politely as possible, that’s exactly how Hutchison managed to tell the United States Congress to suck it.
Suck what? It. Like their decision to place their own party’s power over common-day people. How they pretend to understand life beyond their marbled and perfectly polished palace of a workplace. Those unreasonable guidelines mandate unrealistic directions for alleged end-poverty programs.
That was three years ago now. Tomorrow, in fact, will be the third anniversary since Hutchison cashed in a jar of nickels, dimes, and quarters for gas money to make the trip to the nation’s capital. She wanted to oppose proposed changes to public programs that feed poverty-stricken children.
And she let them know how she felt alright. Hutchison rattled those windows.
“But before I went to D.C., I was on the phone with a congressional aide or something like that and I was giving them the fluffy answers that everyone expects,” Hutchison recalled. “They’d ask, ‘What’s poverty like?’ and I was giving them the same stats and the same scenarios. But then someone on that call kind of called me out and that’s when I kind of flipped out. I said, ‘Oh, what do you want to hear?
“Do you want to hear the fact that I can’t afford health insurance and I have a toothache and I’m eating ibuprofen like Tic Tacs? Is that what you want to hear? So, you want to hear the non-sexy parts? Oh, I flipped, but that’s exactly what they wanted to hear,” she said. “It surprised me, but yeah, I finally told them about the reality.”
And they didn’t hang up on her either.
“Well, after my little rant, it was completely silent, so I didn’t really know. But after a few moments, that’s when someone thanked me. So, then I went and did the congressional thing and no one ever watches those things, right? So, I just thought I would go into the room, say what I say, and just go home.
“Well, it didn’t go that way,” the activist recounted. “I was mad. I was really mad, and by the time I got home, the video of what I said was already viral, and since then life really hasn’t been the same.”
Morsels Are Larger than Crumbs
“People are working full-time and they’re hungry.”
Those words delivered yet another message to those listening three years ago in Washington D.C. because Hutchison knows it to be true. It was her truth as a Marshall County child, her life as a poor college kid, and her reality as a struggling, single mother.
“Listen, I was raised to believe that no bad how things would be at work, that I had to have the job because I needed the job so, you just stayed there. I was taught that I’d have to do something that I’d absolutely hate and I’d have to do it forever,” Hutchison said matter-of-factly. “That’s the way people raised like I was raised talked to ourselves. ‘You need the money, you can’t quit. Quit complaining; you need the money; you can’t quit.’ Over and over.
“That’s why I stayed in some less-than-desirable employment positions. Just because of that. I always needed a job, and I didn’t know what else I could do. But then I went to D.C. and that happened, so that’s when I decided to start the Rattle the Windows organization,” she explained. “’Rattle the Windows’ was included in what I said during the congressional hearing and people started hashtagging it. So, that’s when I said to myself, ‘Let’s do this,’ and I did.”
So, life has changed.
“But, I mean, I’m not rich, trust me. I’m still relevant to the anti-poverty message, but my peace of mind is a heck of a lot better,” Hutchison said. “I’m bougie poverty. I’m bougie poor now. That’s what I talk about now. I still have to save up for everything; I still have to watch what I buy because I don’t want to be embarrassed at the checkout line. It’s still very stressful when something goes wrong, right? Because something always goes wrong. Before, we went without, but now we can make something happen by delaying something else, but it’s still very tough.
“People are hungry, though. I know people don’t want to hear about that, but it’s true. There will be children right here where we live who will go to bed tonight hungry, and that shouldn’t happen,” she insisted. “And those parents have to wait until their next payday to fix that. When they do go to the store, they really have to count because there’s really nothing worse than having your card rejected because you needed too much for home.”
Sipping Stone Soup
Amy Jo is an organizer. She gets people’s attention by telling them the truth from a different angle unseen by those who have never needed, and that’s why so many can relate to her ever-echoing message about what hunger looks like.
She joined the alliance responsible for “Blessing Boxes” in Ohio County – all nine of them – and she’s clued in everyone from THE Jon Stewart to seminar and conference crowds across the country.
“No one is good when they’re hungry,” Hutchison said. “Not kids in school and not adults at their jobs. But they are. They’re hungry.
“That’s why I’m never going to quit fighting for people. People should never be hungry, and I believe food is a right. It’s a human right. People should get food. So, yeah, I’m never going to be done fighting for people.”
She and her daughters can take vacations now, but they have to plan to the penny. Hutchison calls her daughters “her chicks,” and one of them last week was excited to be eating spaghetti out of the “box with the lady on it.”
“I bought that box of noodles for 55 cents, but I didn’t tell her,” Amy Jo said. “I let her have that because it was important to her. It made her feel not poor.”
The family, including her and her mother, daughters, dogs, and chickens now live in Triadelphia in a house with a tall fence around a nice yard they never, ever had before. Life has changed a bit for Amy Jo and her chicks, and yes, for the better in many unexplainable ways, but she insisted the struggle is still very real.
“I can only live how I’m able to live in my situation and that’s why I say bougie poor,” Hutchison said. “We have a hole in this country when it comes to society because when you’re supposed to be in the middle class, it doesn’t mean the same it used to. It’s not the same American dream that it was.
“But you know, when I told Jon Stewart about the truths of poverty, he said no one had ever explained it to him like that. I do what I do because people need to hear it. They need to hear it and they need to know it,” she added. “People act like poverty is some great divide, but the fact is that we come into contact with working for poor folks everywhere we go. And we need to stop lying about it, and we need to stop lying to ourselves about it.”
