Tag: class shame

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Letters about Poverty

by Lis Goldschmidt, Dean Spade, and Pascal Emmer

These letters originally appeared on Make and the first two also appeared in the anthology Without a Net (Ed. M. Tea).

Dean-

Hey. How’s things in NYC? Tired here. Just home from hanging out with everyone. Feeling really tired of the class stuff we were talking about the other day. Tired of people fronting like they’re poor or grew up poor or whatever-like it’s cool to be poor. You know the deal. They put it on like an accessory. You know? Just like co-opting any culture. Do you know what I mean? It’s like people who wear “native garb” from wherever they’re exoticizing at the moment-but the thing is they take it off when it gets old to them.

I guess I’m just feeling pretty pissed. Like I can’t take it off. Like it IS old. It’s always been old. And makes me feel old and fucking tired. And small. Continue reading “Letters about Poverty”

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Poverty Scholarship

by Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia

“Writing, reading, thinking, imagining, speculating. These are luxury activities, permitted to a privileged few whose idle hours of the day can be viewed otherwise than as a bowl of rice or a loaf bread less to share with the family.”

-Trinh T Minh-ha from Women, Native, Other

There are many things this poverty scholar can teach you, but in reality, no more or less than any of the poverty scholars you see, or more than likely don’t see, everyday. Homeless families, poor youth of color, migrant workers, panhandlers, sex workers; sitting, dwelling, camping, soliciting work, convening. I am them, they are me. Continue reading “Poverty Scholarship”

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Class Stuff

I’ve been thinking about class and community. I’ve been thinking how hard it is to build cross-class community. Lots of stuff comes up in my cross-class relationships. Stuff about money of course, but really, it’s not just the money. There’s stuff about talking, stuff about eating, stuff about dressing. There’s stuff about how close you stand and who you touch and how far in advance you make plans. There’s stuff about how often you do laundry and who has your spare key and how you feel about the kids on the corner. Continue reading “Class Stuff”

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Buy One, Get One. Free.

by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Debt is spelled with a silent “be”. (I mean to use the passive voice.) Debt is spelled with a silent “be”, an empty letter holding space next to unopened bills. Debt is spelled with a silent “be”. As in “be quiet, feign ignorance and master the timing of smiling and leaving.” But I learned this before I learned to spell.

My mother learned from my father that debt was the American way. A $9 trillion US deficit backs this lesson up. From letters dropped out of my mother’s mouth I learned that money was something we never had enough of, something we needed urgently. From cards dropped out of my father’s hands I learned that money was not real. From the hypocritical narrative of consumer capital I learned shame and silence. I learned that we were less than empty, that we were less than zero.

Continue reading “Buy One, Get One. Free.”