Why Would Society Rather Fight Racism Than Poverty?

In my Social Justice class today, the question was brought up about whether people would rather fight racism than fight poverty. I didn't have to think long in order to decide that, yes, society as a whole would probably prefer to fight racism than poverty. The reason is simple. Race is something that everyone is born into, whereas class is something people believe others have control over.

In Chapter Four of The Trouble With Diversity, Michaels brings up a reality TV show called Wife Swap. In the show, wives from vastly different backgrounds switch places for a few weeks, to see what they can teach, and learn from, a different family. In the episode that Michaels writes about, a working class woman switches places with a very much upper class woman. The first woman lives a life where she takes care of the chores and responsibilities around her small house, drives a school bus to bring in extra money for her family, and spends the rest of the time with her children. The second woman does not have a job at all, or any responsibilities, but still feels the need to employ four nannies to care for her children. She spends her days working out, shopping, going to the spa, and doing other recreational activities. When she does find time to spend with her children, the four nannies hang around to handle any of the difficult parts of dealing with children, so the mother can just enjoy her time with them. The idea of the episode is for viewers to have more admiration for the first woman, who is poorer and must work hard to care for her family. The viewers, and the richer woman in the show, come to the conclusion that maybe it is actually better to be poor, because the poorer woman spends more time with her children and just seems to have a better attitude about life.

I actually saw the episode Michael wrote about. Although this is a "reality" show, I think it painted a sort of quaint, optimistic picture of being poor or "working class." I have a more realistic view of poverty from my first-hand experiences. I live in a small three-bedroom house that is home to three adults, three children, and two dogs. I live with my best friend and her boyfriend and children because, being a full time student, I can't afford my own place to live. My best friend works full time, at a job that she detests, plus does as much overtime as she can. She wishes she could spend more quality time with her three kids, but by the time she gets finished working a full day, then comes home to deal with the responsibilities of the house, she is often too stressed out and exhausted to do much more than try to make sure that they somehow get dinner, take baths, and go to bed on time. I watch the kids three days a week when I'm not in school, but I also don't have as much energy to spend "quality" time with the kids, because I have to spend every free moment on homework and studying. As I speak, the five-year-old is begging me to play with her while the baby naps. I'm letting her draw pictures in my binder, and I took a break to cut an apple in half for her and show her the star in the middle, but she always needs more. Even with three adults living in the house, there is never enough time or attention to go around.

We always manage to have food on the table, but just barely. Often bills don't get paid, and appliances get shut off. The beginning of the school year was a major crisis, because we had to come up with the money to register the two oldest kids for school and get everything on their extensive school supply lists. Because the house is so small, its usually cluttered for lack of anyplace to put things,, and we're usually all on top of each other, irritating each other. The children are alarmingly territorial about food, getting upset when they feel someone else has eaten more than their share of Nutty Bars or drank more than their share of juice boxes or sodas, because they can never be sure that their food supplies will be replenished! This week we may have juice boxes and sodas, but next week the kids may be stuck drinking nothing but water.

My friend once mentioned that when she was younger she would watch TV shows about poor families, and would think that poverty was sort of a nice thing that just made everyone in the house love each other more and be happier for what they do have. Now, she says, she knows the truth... being poor sucks! We're not a happy and well-organized little family who appreciates what little we do have. We're stressed out by our never-ending quest for survival. If our family was rich, we would most likely not hire four nannies to chase after the kids for us, but my best friend would probably be thrilled with the chance to stay home and raise her own kids. And I probably would not move away from them, because they're my family and I love them, but it would be nice to have my own place, across the street from them perhaps, where I could have my own bed and occasionally go to the bathroom without a parade of small children and animals following me! It would be cool to have a basement, where the kids could run around and play on rainy days. It would be nice for the two little girls to have a room big enough to actually fit both of their beds and dressers in more comfortably! It would be fun to have a clothes dryer that actually worked. It would be nice to buy the kids their favorite name-brand cereals without going into a total panic about spending the extra two dollars that could have been used on laundry. These small conveniences, afforded to the upper class, would make all the differences in my family's quality of life.

The Wife Swap episode mentioned in the book did not show this part of being poor. I believe that the reason is that people really would rather not think about the more negative parts of being poor. The upper class would like to enjoy their wealth without feeling pressured to share it. When it comes to fighting racism, people can tell themselves, "Nobody can help being black, or white, or Asian, or Hispanic, or whatever." People are born into their races, and any logical person can see that a person's skin color is no reason to disrespect them. In fact, as Michaels shows throughout his book, many people feel proud of how un-racist they are, and will point it out to others. But a person's income, and how financially well off they are, seems more personal. The idea of the USA is supposed to be that anyone can become wealthy, if they work hard enough at it. So, it may be easy for a wealthy white business man to look at his black co-worker and think of the man as an equal, because aside from their different races, they both probably have similar educations, similar paychecks, and enjoy similar lifestyles. But do the wealthy white business man, and his black associate, look at the man who vacuums their offices at night, in the same way? No matter what that man's race is, it may be harder for the other men to think of him as an equal. He most likely does not have the same education, the same paycheck, or the same lifestyle, as them. The white and black associates can tell themselves that if the third man had worked harder, and gone to college, and done all the other things right in his life, he could have been where they are. What they don't know is that the man had to drop out of school when he was fifteen to work full time and help support his family; or the man's girlfriend got pregnant when they were sixteen years old, and they got married, and college was out of the question after that; or the man's family could only afford to send one child in the family to school and they chose his older brother; or the man couldn't get into college in the first place because he had a severe learning disability that remained undiagnosed back then, and he never did well in school, and his parents and teachers advised him to just take shop class and get a simple job he could handle. Many people don't like to think about those possibilities. They'd rather believe that everyone gets what they deserve, and that people who make poor choices in life end up with less. Or, they'd rather believe that the third man just really enjoys vacuuming other people's offices and that, really, his family is probably much happier being poor.

I believe that people would rather fight racism than fight poverty, because they'd like to think that everyone has control over their own destinies. However, I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true. Those who are poor have as much going against them as those who are of minority races. Those who are both poor and minorities have two strikes against them. The two issues, racism and poverty, should both be fought at once.