I’m serious, I loathe and despise people who tell us to stop doing the one thing that we are having trouble doing - being poor. We do not “choose” to be poor, we are forced to live in this crappy financial state because something always seems to get in the way of everything to halt our progress. Yet, these people just love to bully us poor people and tell us “Y’know, you could just not be poor” or something among those lines. I would absolutely love to stop being this way, but I just can’t. I can’t even work because I have literally been deemed ‘unworkable’ by a doctor. And these people just pick on us and tell us that we need to stop living like this. How about you stop being toxic? Yeah, sure, let’s victim-blame and poverty-shame poor people for being born into poverty or being pushed into poverty through circumstances that are out of their control. We pay for so much crap as it is: food, water, electricity, a place to live, and internet. Don’t you think we’ve been through enough? That we have suffered enough crap as it is? We are over here struggling and suffering because of everything being ridiculously expensive. I mean, we had to previously afford $80 for horrible internet service from Spectrum before we were able to switch to Fastwyre Fiber. I mean, gas prices literally go up every year, make that every month, due to inflation. There’s gonna be a time when we won’t even be able to afford gas because of it costing too damn much. And yet, we get victim-blamed for having financial woes. But, guess who is still doing good? Greedy, heartless, exploitive rich people who want to gut social programs for the poor, disabled, and sick. They always are able to get out of everything, which includes taxes. And then, those very same people tell us to start getting more money and tell us “have you ever tried not being poor” if we say anything about living expensives or having a hard time buying anything essential. We need help, we get none, and we are laughed at as a result because we need to “stop being poor”. Well, if you say it to me, then I have this to say to you: “Stop talking to me”. Cut me out of your pathetic life if you don’t like the fact I am financially struggling. I have actually ended up crying sometimes over this nonsense and people like you saying crap like this doesn’t help me. I literally have bawled my eyes out over me worrying about ending up homeless due to the fact we have barely any money left after we pay all of our bills and taxes. The only thing that gives us hope at this point is our yearly Tax Return. I did not want to end up in this situation, and I don’t need some toxic fiend bringing me down and making me hate myself for being poor. If all you can do is bring someone down, then I just don’t want anything to do with you. The whole system is designed to keep people like us down and keep the heartless and exploitive rich people flowing with cash. I mean, they literally find legal loopholes to get out of doing taxes, whereas families like us aren’t able to use those “loopholes”. And guess what? They always waste their money on useless crap like multi-million dollar mansions and expensive supercars. And they sit on their butts doing nothing and the government pays them to do it. But no help for us poor people! No! We have to deal with the taxes. And we’re getting made fun of and laughed at by people online whose parents probably failed them in their upbringing and didn’t show them proper discipline as a child for acting like a smartass. There are hundreds of contributing factors as to why people are poor: they can’t work, they got scammed, they’re having to pay a shit-ton of house expenses, something always eating up their funds, literally hundreds of things. Do you think they wanted this to happen? Absolutely not! They’re already struggling enough as it is. What we should be doing is taxing the overly-wealthy rich people who work against us and force them to pay mandatory wealth expenses and actively punish them if they refuse to pay the expenses, evade them, or both. But no, we’re in this stupid system where the heartless rich people get money for doing nothing while we get nothing from it. And people online who tell us to “get a job” and “stop being poor” only make us feel like crap for being poor. It actually makes us hate ourselves. I am stuck in poverty and I don’t feel like there is ever gonna be a way out of it, I do not need someone bullying me on top of it. It’s bullying in real life, and online, it’s cyberbullying. You say this to me, and it’s a great way for you to end up on my blacklist; I will ultimately avoid talking to you and will never speak to you again. If anyone says it to me in real life, I will just drop my conversation with them and walk in the opposite direction, far away from them. And the digital equivalent is me blocking the account in question that said it. I do not have time to deal with toxicity from people who just want to poverty-shame poor people. You say it to me, and you will be on my ignore list for the rest of your life. I am done dealing with toxicity towards us poor people as a poor person myself. I’m done with toxic, heartless monsters who think they can just say anything and get away with it. I used to have a lot more patience, but life is too short. I’m serious, I am fed up. I hate everyone who uses the “stop being poor” sentence or any other form of it. Any form of the sentence is poverty-shaming and it will cause you to immediately get the boot should you even dare utter that sentence or any form of it to me. If you want to act toxic, do it somewhere else, because I am done listening to you and done playing your stupid games. It’ll be one less asshole to deal with.
I’m sorry if I went on a tangent. I just hate seeing poor people mocked and made fun of.
TL:DR; If you tell me, or any other poor person to “stop being poor”, I will consider you to be a toxic person you will be put on my blacklist, and you will be forbidden from speaking to or interacting with me.
In my circle of influence, I’ve witnessed a lot of people sympathize with the poor but wish they would go and be poor somewhere else.
Talk about being “hypocritical”… =_=
Classism and ableism (and sexism and racism and queerphobia and so on) are all deliberate parts of the system, it’s how hierarchy functions - to divide society and centralise the power in the hands of a few, while they pit the rest of us against each other so that we don’t turn on them.
That doesn’t excuse people who participate in it, of course, your frustration and anger are 100% valid, they’re assholes and should be held accountable for their actions, but the problem is much much bigger than them personally, it is the systems that we live under and its trillion dollar propaganda machines (not only the news, but pretty much all main stream entertainment, not to mention the state and the departments under its control like the economy, health, and education), and without abolishing that, we will neve have an inclusive and supportive society, only the continued effects of constant division and hatred sown by those in power.
Aim your anger at them.
And until then, try your best to remove people who say shit like that from your life, or if you must, go for the minimal possible interaction. They’re unlikely to change their ways or views until A. society stops validating them and or B. they are personally impact and only then finally get it and give a shit, at which point if they want to, they can apologise to you for being as wrong, self centred, and short sighted as they were, and you can then decide if you want to give them a second chance or not.
Edit to add because I’m still waking up and forgot to include, a couple of examples of how people who are in reality just as close to homelessness as those they berate are so easily made to betray their own interests:
The idea that one is simply a “temporarily embarrassed millionaire”
they are personally impact and only then finally get it and give a shit
This is seriously what I WANT to happen to them. I just want people who say that toxic bullshit to be financially impacted severely and I want them to experience what it’s TRULY like to be “poor” and to be stuck in poverty. It will be harder for them to find work, and it will also be incredibly harder for them to make money since they are barely able to afford the cost of living. That reality check will just hit them on the head like a goddamn frieght train and maybe, just maybe, think for a second before they spew out their vile, heartless, and evil comments. I think it is truly the only way they will learn that actions have consequences.
Yeah, I can understand that, I often feel the same, but realistically, waiting for every selfish asshole to be impacted enough to care isn’t going to work for us, because it won’t only take absolute ages, but more importantly, the systems will always grant some people more privilege than others to get them to side with it (or at least not fight it), so even if the already fictional middle class completely collapsed, there will be a group to fill the gap (it also falls under the just world fallacy, where people get what they deserve, which simply isn’t reality).
Which leads back to my earlier point - we have to abolish the system, rather than hope that it, and the individuals under its influences, change, because that isn’t going to happen.
Whatever the case, and despite it often not feeling this way, you’re not alone, in what you have to face nor in how it makes you feel. The key is finding those around you who can see and feel it too, and building solidarity and community with them, and from there, with others. They say “workers of the world unite” for good reason - only together are we strong enough to break free from our oppressors.
I’m sorry you’ve had to face so much poverty shaming. You’re right that you don’t deserve it. Nobody does.
Capitalism maintains the psychology of poverty shaming, it is one way to react to and stymy nascent class consciousness. [Putting on my capitalist hat] “Oh, you’re blaming me for keeping the value of your work, making everything expensive, and doing my best to implement a ‘work or die’ society? Maybe you should just try harder to get out from under my boot. Oh, and polish it while you’re at it.”
So it’s a potent force backed by the greatest powers on the planet. I’m glad that we can at least come together and recognize and oppose it and share consciousness against it.
