Poor People Deserve To Taste Something Other Than Shame
Old but just as applicable today. 
https://theestablishment.co/poor-people-deserve-to-taste-something-other-than-shame-90eb3aceabf9
May 12, 2016
Poor People Deserve To Taste Something Other Than Shame
snip//
I didn’t understand that my mom already was ashamed and sorry. I didn’t know that she walked around ashamed and sorry every day. I didn’t see that she stood in food bank and church lines ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that she went to holiday collection services ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that she took us to our free dental appointments ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that every time she passed over those food stamps to try to feed us she was ashamed and sorry. I didn’t realize that every message that had surrounded me and told me that we were poor because my mom was a bad mom who couldn’t take care of us had not only surrounded my mom, but had filled her lungs and rested in her heart. I understood only what the pundits had wanted me to see — that she was a poor woman who was squandering what she already didn’t deserve.
And that is what we are saying, when we talk disdainfully about poor people buying lobster and steak, or nice phones, or new clothes. We are saying, you are not sorry and ashamed enough. You do not hate your poor existence enough. Because when you are poor, you are supposed to take the help that is never enough and stretch it so you have just enough misery to get by. Because when you are poor you are supposed to eat ramen every day and you are supposed to know that every bite of that nutrition-less soup is your punishment for bad life decisions. Your kids are supposed to be mocked at school for their outdated clothes — how else will they know to not end up like you when they grow up?
And for heaven’s sake, the last thing you should be allowed to do is to take one evening with your kids to sit at a table and eat a dish of pure indulgence in the hopes that your children will have a few minutes to feel the same way you did when you were a kid and you weren’t ashamed to exist.
I look back on this time and I do feel shame. Not for being poor, but for allowing the judgement of others to dehumanize both me and my mom. I’m ashamed because as I sat at that table, I didn’t taste a single bite of that Boston cream pie. I haven’t had Boston cream pie since, and I doubt I ever will, because the opportunity for it to taste like indulgence and humanity and normality has been lost, and now it can only taste like regret.
And that is all that we accomplish, when we shame poor people for daring to live for a moment like they are not at the mercy of others. We deny them the opportunity to live like actual human beings worthy of dignity and respect. Everyone should be able to bring home a steak or a lobster, or a Boston cream pie, once in a while.
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