Shooting at the walls of ignorance

I was recently conversing with one of my more conservative acquaintances about the realities of Hurricane Katrina, and how I thought that the root problem was abject poverty. Believe it or not, my friend (let's call him Tom) agreed that poverty was the problem, the reason that so many people were trapped for so long in the hideous environs of the Superdome and Convention Center in New Orleans.

But then ignorance raised its ugly head.

"Whose fault is it," he asked, "that these people spend their welfare checks on crack, rather than good cars? Why should the Federal government come in and save these people who don't care about their own basic survival? Why can't people in poverty just get a damn job?"

Get a job? What jobs? Have you been to, say, North St. Louis, or the south side of Chicago? Watts? There are NO jobs to be had in those areas. I live in St. Louis, and I can tell you that there aren't even any freaking grocery stores for miles around. There aren't any jobs to be had.

And why is it that people, very often on the right, assume that just because somebody lives in poverty, they're a crackhead? Or that they waste their money? More often than not, they don't HAVE money to waste.

Poverty is a circular problem - if you grow up poor, chances are very good that you will die poor. And that your children will do the same. And so on and so forth until the end of time. Sure, some people get out, and we celebrate them as great stories, inspirations, yadda yadda yadda. But they are the exception, and not the rule.

What are the odds that righties are in favor of job-training programs? Learn-to-work programs, job fairs, this that and the other thing? I'm sure most conservatives know they'd almost have to be government-funded; chances are good that very few companies would be willing to foot the bill for programs like that, when they can just ask middle-class folks to work for them, without having to invest in a program to teach people who want to work and who want job skills but just don't have that knowledge.

And even WITH that knowledge, where would they work? Someplace miles away. Would you be willing to ride an hour on a city bus each way to work? Try it for a week. Then tell me you'd be willing to do it for months at a time, until you can save up the money to buy and insure a car. And maintain that car. It's very difficult, something that people who have never known true need just never seem to realize.

And let's pretend you're poor and want to move. Fine, go for it. But save up for a damage deposit on an apartment closer to work - probably 500 bucks, plus first month's rent due before you move in. And, in a lot of cities, you'll have to pay another hundred bucks for an apartment inspection by the city. Call that 1200 bucks, all told. I'd be impressed if you can save up for that on a wage less than 10 bucks an hour without getting discouraged. Oh, and don't forget to eat.

Forget about going to college. If your school system is unaccredited, and even if you graduate from high school, you can't get into most schools. So, tough nuts, I guess, if you're too poor to go to Country Day.

The root cause of poverty isn't the people, it's the lack of jobs and good role models in the home - folks who have jobs, work hard, et cetera. That's not because the poor are crackheads - it's because government and private industry, together, have failed to educate citizens in and around the poorest areas of cities and have an unwillingness to invest in those neighborhoods. Government has abandoned them, and industry is fearful of them. And the end result is that what we see when the rich abandon a town is that the poor, who were swept under the rug so long ago, still exist and are real people, just as scared as the middle and upper classes - and when the rug is pulled up, we realize it's us who've been pushing them aside.