5 ms·
I grew up in poverty in the US as well, and I agree there’s a heartless tendency for people not to acknowledge it’s real. The tired comment I see most frequentl
by psyc 9y ago
I grew up in poverty in the US as well, and I agree there’s a heartless tendency for people not to acknowledge it’s real. The tired comment I see most frequently is something like “nobody in the US is poor because everyone has plumbing, refrigerators, and TVs.” First, no, everyone does not. Many people are homeless. Second, it’s very narrow to focus on objective material factors, because that discounts the toll of the nightmarish stress the poor live with constantly, even the ones who have an apartment and a television.
- baby 9y agoThe most shocking place I've visited in my life was San Francisco. Super rich people surrounded by armies of homeless people.
- dfgdsfgsd 9y agoI spent three months in S. Barbara. I hated it for this reason. All I could see were the homeless, ignored. Once, a homeless person's wheelchair tripped on a curb and he fell off into the street. People literally walked over him until I picked him up and back into his chair. I'd lived in Atlanta for several years before but the attitude of the well do to the poor was obscene. When I left, I vowed I would never live in coastal California again.
- coolaliasbro 9y agoAgreed--this was a huge source of philosophical dissonance for me when I lived there. The issue is just as persistent in the East Bay (specifically, Oakland/Berkeley) and is worse, IMO, because Berkeley espouses a progressive/compassionate/environmentally+socially friendly image, to which it does not adhere in practice.