Broke: The Dehumanization of The Poor

By Judy Lee ‘17 

I was reading through Yik Yak (as one does when fleeing from their responsibilities) and fell upon a yak that really hit home for me. It went something like this:

It made me contemplate what this entailed. Essentially, it falls under the general attitude that poor people should be scrounging and making the most of what little they can afford. Being a broke college student AND growing up in a less-than-middle class household, I very much know this attitude.

“Why do they have such things when they’re poor?”

 “You couldn’t even tell they were poor with the clothes they buy.”

 “They could have used that money for more important things, like a suit for an actual job.”

All these things are phrases I’ve heard before and all of them point to one opinion: poor people, regardless of the situation, are viewed as lazy and undeserving of the basic human desires. They have somehow unearned their right to vanity and pride—those are expected to be thrown out the window under a certain income level.

Why?

The truth of the matter is that no one knows how these people came to be in such a compromising life state. Without context, it is impossible to judge but one must also keep in mind that even with context, it is wrong to do so.

This goes in tandem with the assumption that all poor people must have a rightful cause to receive money from someone. Everyone has a threshold of “righteousness” the beggar must have before money or food is handed to them. As if they do not have a difficult enough life, we put ourselves in the business of ranking their suffering with what we (often incorrectly) project ourselves to act in their situation. It is remembering that they have a story, and that they are human (in need, may I add) that should take precedence. 

Because at the end of the day, everyone wants what’s behind the store window. This is no different for those with less money in their pocket. No, it does not make them lazy or irresponsible.

It makes them human.

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