Why Should We Care? They’re Just Trash

Republicans in Congress are poised to pass a so-called tax “reform” bill that will once again aggrandize the wealthy at the expense of the less privileged. As has been argued persuasively by others, the immorality of this legislation goes beyond its unconscionable redistribution of wealth. Its consequences will lead to a diminished quality of life for millions and actual death for thousands of others. One might ask what could possibly be going on in the minds and hearts of these arrogant servants of the privileged. How can they be so totally lacking in compassion? For an answer we need to look no further than the justification given by Senator Chuck Grassley, as critiqued in a recent video by Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks. In justifying the bill’s provision of lifting the untaxed amount of what can be inherited to $22 million, Grassley contrasts those who deserve their wealth because of their wise investing with those who are “…just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

This contemptuous and damning characterization of the poor has been with us for hundreds of years and echoed thousands upon thousands of time by those of privilege to justify oppression and exploitation of the poor. To illustrate just how deep this intense antipathy and derogation of the poor goes, I will direct your attention to research summarized by the social psychologist, Susan Fiske, in an article for Daedulus in 2007. This research used brain imaging or MRI scans to examine the automatic and thus unconscious responses people make when looking at pictures of those who occupy the lowest rungs of society such as the homeless. What this research found is that the patterns of brain activation to such photographs mirrored the disgust triggered by exposure to pictures of garbage, mutilation and human waste. Moreover, those parts of the brain that would ordinarily be activated by perceiving another human being did not occur when viewing pictures of a homeless person. As Fiske concludes, the findings indicate that our prejudice toward the lowest of the low goes very deep indeed. Not only are they no better than trash or waste; they are not even human.

As Nancy Isenberg persuasive argues in her recent book, White Trash, dismissing the poor as waste and trash has its roots in the very origins of the United States. Isenberg challenges the fabricated narrative that early settlers of the New World sought to establish a country unlike the class-bound society of England in which all would be regarded as equal and live free. This myth of a classless society remains even today. However, the reality is that men of privilege in joint-stock companies driven by profit seized the opportunity of ridding England of undesirables and troublemakers by sending them off to settle the colonies. Their agenda was to reduce poverty in England and, in doing so, send individuals who were essentially regarded as waste and trash to the colonies to be exploited as unfree labor. The vast majority of people who landed on the shores of the New World were considered completely expendable and were meant to be placed at the service of the privileged few. These expendables included vagrants, petty criminals, prostitutes, debtors and even children who were swept up from the streets of London to make up for labor shortages in a practice called “spiriting”. Despite the expectation that this refuse would end up dying off, as Isenberg points out these individuals would make up a permanent underclass in the U.S. that continued to be considered of inferior breed and incapable of improvement.

The Myth of the Classless Society

Isenberg and many others have critiqued the widely regarded view that class has no relevance in a land of opportunity like the U.S. In point of fact, Grassley’s characterization of the poor as lazy, stupid, irresponsible, immoral, uneducated, unruly and criminal is a reflection of classism. Classism is a collection of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors expressed in everyday practices and institutional structures and polices that oppress the poor. These attributes are then used to justify the contempt and disgust directed toward the poor and to legitimize their exploitation in order to serve the needs and purposes of the privileged.

While the tendency of the brain to react to trash and waste with disgust may be innate, associating that same disgust with the poor has been learned. It is the product of an ingrained ideology whose purpose it is to justify privilege at the expense of the powerless. It is a dangerous and destructive worldview that asserts an inevitable inequality existing between human beings even while paradoxically asserting the absence of class distinctions because of the opportunities afforded to everyone to attain the American dream. At the same time that it sees the natural condition of some individuals to be inferior and meant to submissively serve the powerful, it condemns those same individuals for failing to exercise their freedom and take responsibility for their actions.

Our contemporary neoliberal ideology continues to espouse and elevate such attitudes and beliefs. Primary among them are individualism and meritocracy. The United States is a highly individualistic culture and has been for hundreds of years. Individualism extols self-reliance, uniqueness, autonomy, and self-interest. Such over-emphasis on the individual undermines a sense of community and collective concern. It also neglects the impact of a broad range of social, economic and political factors on individuals and instead situates causes for things like poverty solely inside of the individual — essentially blaming the victim. The conservative version of this myth is evidenced in Grassley’s statement which ascribes poverty to character flaws, immorality and a lack of personal responsibility. However, there is a “liberal” version as well often favored by Corporate Democrats. This attributes poverty to some deficit in individuals like a lack education and marketable skills. This was sadly apparent in the lame-brained “Better Deal” recently advanced by Corporate Democrats. As Thomas Franks observes in his book, Listen Liberal, among the current well-educated and wealthy elite, failure to better oneself through education is a popular putdown of the poor,

Meritocracy goes hand-in-hand with individualism by asserting that anyone, irrespective of class, gender, race, ability, etc. can succeed and ascend the social hierarchy. This, of course, is the so-called Horatio Alger story so treasured among Americans. A clear example of the fallacy of this belief is critiqued in the previously mentioned video. While Grassley chastises the poor for a lack of work ethic, he disingenuously extols individuals who acquired substantial wealth not through hard work but through the good fortune of inheriting millions of dollars.

Who Are, or Can Become, the Poor?

The utter nonsense advanced by these beliefs and the ideology from which they are derived is exposed by simply examining who the poor are. Mark Rank in his book, One Nation Underprivileged, does just that. Thirty-five percent of the individuals who compose the poor in the United States are under the age of eighteen. These are people who are born into poverty and who through the process of cumulative deprivation and oppression are never able to lift themselves out of poverty. I have written a piece previously about the broad range of pernicious impacts that poverty and inequality have on children. An additional 10% of the poor are over the ages of 65 and struggle due to a lack of savings or retirement pensions and an inadequate social safety net. A further 31% are individuals between the ages of 21 and 64 who have a severe disability that makes it impossible for them to work. Thus, a full 75% of the poor can in no reasonable or moral way be held responsible for their poverty.

One other interesting line of argument made by Rank in support of poverty being due to structural and systemic failings rather than individual flaws or failings is based on longitudinal research. This research examines the life-course risk of individuals experiencing poverty. What this research reveals is that over the course of their lives a majority of Americans will experience poverty at least once. The common reason for this is that so many Americans have to live so close to the threshold of poverty. A single event, such as loss of a job or major illness, can often plummet them into poverty. In other words, many Americans are no strangers to poverty or the looming threat of poverty.

Opposing Oppression: Demythologizing and Empathy

The eminent Brazilian educator, Paolo Friere, in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed offers a means for working to end the war being waged against the poor. We must first squarely identify, call out and debunk the myths the perpetuate classism and the oppression of the poor. This process of demythologizing is achieved in part by raising consciousness of the clear contradictions embedded in the myths of individualism and meritocracy. Can children really held accountable for being poor? Should people who work full time jobs still earn so little that it places them below the poverty line? Should someone be impoverished by a single medical emergency that forces him or her into bankruptcy? What does succeeding through hard work have to do with being propelled into wealth by simply inheriting millions of dollars?

Moreover, we have to call out the derogatory and contemptuous attributions made against the poor when people like Chuck Grassley have the temerity to state them. There must be zero tolerance for such disrespect for our fellow human beings.

Which brings me to the last point. The poor are our fellow human beings. As Friere notes and the research cited by Susan Fiske illustrates, oppression robs individuals of their very humanity. Liberation requires that this humanity is not only be recognized but restored. A mere accident of birth means the difference between those of us who are not poor and those who are. And we know that a single adverse life event can hurl any one of us into poverty. We need to listen to the promptings of empathy and remind ourselves, “There but for the grace of God goes I.”