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”