Shots Across the Bow

I am sickened by the constant whining of some people who claim that they are poor. It's really getting grotesque hearing people living in the suburbs complain about their poverty.

Let me give you a little clue.
TOP TEN SIGNS YOU MIGHT NOT REALLY BE POOR.

10. If you have a roof over your head that you own, you aren't poor.
9. If you have a car to drive, and gas to put in it, you aren't poor.
8. If you have a TV, a DVD player, cable, and/or internet access, you aren't poor.
7. If there's food on the table and more in the fridge, you aren't poor.
6. If you can afford takeout dinner once a week, you aren't poor.
5. If your kids have clothes that belong to them only, you aren't poor.
4. If you have a family doctor, you aren't poor.
3. If you go out to dinner once a month, you aren't poor
2. If your children sleep through the night because their bellies are full of food, then you aren't poor.
1. If your household income is above the US median ($50,233 in 2007), you most certainly are not poor.

If the above conditions describe you, then you aren't poor. You just want more than you've got, a feeling that afflicts many of us regardless of our income.

So stop whining about it.

You want to talk about poverty? Let's talk about the folks living in Sevier County who know about real poverty. Let's talk about a little boy who had to wear his older sister's dresses because hand me downs were the only clothes the family could afford. Let's talk about the kids going to school without proper supplies because there was no money for books, or paper, or a freaking $1.00 ruler from Walmart. Let's talk about the kids in Cocke County and Union County and Greene County that go to bed hungry each night; who can't wait for school to start so they know they'll get at least one good meal a day. Let's talk about the illegal immigrants who brave the desert, the Border Patrol, and racist fools in order to perform backbreaking labor for money most of us would laugh at, just so they can send it home, so their kids can eat.

You want to cry about how poor you are because you can't afford a new purse? Tell it to the lady who can't afford to take her little girl to the doctor to correct a cleft palate.

Let's talk about real poverty. Let's talk about Africa, where kids grow up without parents, because they were taken by disease or violence. Let's talk about kids going to bed every night, hungry, helpless, and hopeless. Let's talk about these kids growing up trapped in an unbreakable cycle of poverty, doomed to miss out on an education because their family needs them to work. Doomed to miss out on job training because they are too busy hauling water to their homes.

Doomed.

And you want to cry because your car needs tires and you'll have to give up your dinner out this month to pay for them?

Grow up! All of you!

Let me clue you in to something. If you live in the United States, chances are you've never experienced true poverty. There are isolated pockets of true poverty in America, but most people never see them, much less live in them. I went from being single with no dependents to married with 4 small children and one on the way, and I made less than $24,000 a year as an E-5 in the Navy. By every US standard, I was poor. I qualified for food stamps, assisted housing, WIC, ADFC, and any other welfare program you care to name. I never took a single dime. Not out of pride; if I needed help, I took it, but I didn't need it. I had a car, a TV, a computer, a stereo, furniture, and all the other material things I needed. None of it was new; none of it was particularly nice, but it did the job. My wife was a smart shopper and we operated on a very tight budget. Since I got out of the Navy, I've had some good years and some very lean years. One year, I made almost $60,000 working on a small island in the Pacific ocean, cleaning up a plutonium site; three years later, I made less than $18,000, managing a fast food restaurant while trying to start my first business. I ran up a tremendous amount of debt, and worked for several years to pay it off. I'm not telling you all this to blow my own horn, only to point out the truth. There were many times when I didn't have all the money I wanted, and more than a few times when I didn't have all the money I needed.

I may have been broke, but I was never poor.

You see, while I was in the Navy, I saw real poverty. We pulled into port in Rio de Janeiro. We spent a lot of time on the beaches, partying with the local ladies, but one day, while on a bus ride to Ipanema, I looked out the window and saw a mountainside covered with cardboard shanties. A few of them had corrugated metal roofs, but most of them were just cardboard, held together by faith and duck tape. There was nothing green on the hillside; everything was mud and filth. No bathrooms, no running water, no sanitation whatsoever, no electricity, no food.

Nothing, except kids standing ankle deep in human waste.

I wish I could say I did something, asked some questions, or got involved somehow, but I didn't. It was just too big to deal with; there was no way for me, an upper middle class American, to comprehend poverty on such a large scale. Besides, I was a sailor, and I was there to have a good time. If I worried about the kids I saw in that cardboard hell, I wouldn't enjoy my liberty. So I turned my head, pretended I didn't see it, and rode the bus down to the beach.

I'm not really good at pretending sometimes.

I hesitate to talk about this, because I don't want to be accused of being prideful, but I recently committed to giving 10% of my gross income to God, and I usually choose to do this through charities that minister to the truly poor. I tell you this not to sing my own praises, or even to inspire you to do the same, although that would be wonderful, but to explain why my stomach churns whenever I hear somebody crying about how poor they are while blogging from a desktop computer in their air conditioned home. My anger is not directed solely at their whining, as much as I would like to believe that's the truth.

My anger springs from remembering a callous young man, who saw children struggling in true poverty, and spent his money on food and fun instead of immediately using it to help however he could.

Look, I know times are tough right now, and they're only going to get tougher, and I know some of us have it harder than others. But the honest truth is that nobody reading these words, unless you're homeless and in a library escaping the rain/heat/cold for a few hours, has experienced real poverty. None of us are poor.

We're just spoiled.

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