“It must be hard for people where you come from in this Pandemic” a wite woman neighbor spoke to my South Asian Friend the other day in that usual way “nice” wite people rudely “offer” their arrogant colonial opinions like they are teaching you something, even though noone asked for them.
My friend responded so politely, when I would have just slapped her. “Where I come from? Why don’t you look outside your window at people here sleeping on the street” which pretty much nailed it. This was one of so many of these kinds of arrogant lies “cloaked” as opinions I have heard on where so-called “real” poverty is to myself and fellow poverty skola comrades
I wish I could say this arrogant colonial POV ( Point of View) was unusual but rather its constant and is perpetuated by POC and wite people alike, rich and poor, working together to fuel, encourage, spawn the triple and violent myths of poverty, scarcity and krapitalism
The ongoing lies that if you have accumulated blood-stained dollars, stolen land and things you are successful - that if you only have enough to live on and support your family you are a failure never end and are promoted through media, education and the world. Conversely “support” or what I would call “redistribution” ,is monetized and turned into a business known as charity or philanthropy ( or what I would call philantho-pimping) This business model is also based on the constant othering, categorizing, naming, framing and of poor, disabled people and poverty - the naming and tagging of “under-served” at-risk, under-privileged, “The homeless people, the Seniors, the Youth, the disabled, the immigrants, and on and on.
Embedded in these categories is an inherent acceptance that “we” the United Snakes, don’t have real poverty, which informs, funds, and legitimizes 21st century missionaries like the Peace Corp, and Red Cross, and all kinds of actual church “missions” who claim to be doing “God’s work” when they travel to “save” countless numbers of poor children ( read colonize or perpetuate colonial “education” systems and land everywhere) and the myth of the orphan - indigenous children stolen from their village and families so they can be “saved” by European/US missionaries.
In these conversations about Global poverty” there is NEVER a conversation about radical redisribution, or the frame we teach called ComeUnity Reparations- so indigenous peoples from Maya to Mama Africa can launch their own sovereign, self-determined solutions ,Only conversations about “starting Skools for poor African Children ( one of Oprah Winfrey’s Projects) or constant charity distributions of unhealthy food, supplies and water to replace all that was stolen and pillaged by CorpapeShuns like Chevron, etc .
Now don’t get me wrong, poor people need to survive, by any means necessary and some of the dangerous idiocy of “cnoscious” people who help poor and indigenous people launch fair trade movements and build “wells” and other so-called teach how to catch a fish projects across Mama Earth is the idea that all poor people labor should stop. Yes ultimately it should all stop and all people should get back everything that was stolen, extracted, missionized out of and away from them and all the profits and interest made on those centuries of colonial rape and robbery, but in the meantime sometimes all you have is an Amonstrazon job that pays $1.00 per day manufacturing over-priced Western clothing for CorpRape entities like Slavemart and Target, or a coffee or chocolate plantation job which possibly a lot of family members rely on which is not up to you conscious wite and rich people of all colors and often times is another error of savior complexing, colonial deciding and the violence of “helping” which we teach in PeopleSKool to wealth-hoarders working to decolonize their lives.
But the othering is easy and soft and simple and so much easier than realizing that even with your body in that place you spent $800-1500 to fly to, you are already benefiting off of the years of colonial terror of that sovereign land, whether you are there to do “sexy” missionary or helping work or whether you are there to just be a tourist.
Poverty in the US must be hidden, if we didnt all succeed here, then krapitalism, and its sisters, non-profiteering and neo-iberalism would have massively failed. Poor labor pools willing to clean rich peoples toilets, dishes and sheets and ship Amonstrazon products quickly would dry up as people would stop believing in the fake amerikkklan dream and refuse to risk their life, crossing false borders and Mama Ocean just to come here.
Poverty is all around you, wealth-hoarders and wanna be wealth-hoarders, it exists in every neighborhood, barrio and community across the United Snakes, thanks to the policies that made you rich, the poLice who terrorize us, the blighting and taxing and destroying of poor peoples neighborhoods and the anti-poor people Lies( Laws) you constantly put into place to ensure, the poor people stay poor, the colonial lies and herstory washing that is called education of our poor and with Covid and the evil violence of Scamlords, it has only increased homelessness, poverty and instability.
The solutions aren’t in the saving, preaching, selling and extracting of us poor people. The answers are in radical redistribution of hoarded land and resources and for fellow poor folks - our self-determination and un-selling of our ideas, our labor, our education and our Mama Earth