Inequality.org co-editor and author, Chuck Collins, sat down with the folks at Project Twist-It, a multi-platform storytelling initiative founded by Mary O’Hara, who grew up in poverty and is a journalist. They explore the narratives that justify poverty and how they shape our views on inequality.

PT: What was the motivation behind writing “Born on Third Base”?

CC: Born on Third Base is really about demystifying advantage, trying to explain the workings of the multi-generational nature of inequality. I grew up in the richest 1 percent and share my own experience along side what I’ve learned about the narratives that hold inequality in place. I’ve got a pretty good list of the 101 plus ways that intergenerational advantage works.

My experience campaigning around tax fairness and addressing poverty has reinforced why this work is important. There is, for example, a fair amount of amnesia when it comes to people remembering how they got to where they are. White people forget about government funded programs that helped build white wealth after World War Two –and thwarted wealth-building by people of color. Business owners forget about family help that may have been essential to their own success narrative.

In Born on Third Base I lift up the stories of people who society would view as wealthy and successful –and amplify the part of their stories where they disclose the family and government help that made their situation possible. I call these the “I Didn’t Do It Alone” stories. It is an attempt to replace the destructive myth with a more accurate narrative of wealth-creation.

PT: What in your view is the dominant narrative around poverty and poorer people in America? How does it differ from the narrative that surrounds the rich?

CC: The dominant narrative about poverty is the mirror image of the dominant narrative justifying great wealth. If I were to summarize it on a bumper sticker it would be, “People are (economically) where they deserve to be.” In other words, people possess wealth because they work hard, take risks, have greater creativity and intelligence – they have greater virtues such as grit, etc. And the shadow corollary to that story: people are poor because of individual deficiencies.

Of course, there are individual differences in effort, skills, etc. And these might account for modest differentials in rewards. But such relatively minor differences should not be deployed to explain deep and systemic inequalities. The narrative of individual “deservedness” has the effect of taking big systemic causes and individualizing them or personalizing them. The implication is, therefore, to fix poverty we must “fix the individual” or fix the “delivery mechanism” of access to education, services.