(This is chapter 21 of "Up and Out," a book condensing my long experience about how to best help poor people. I pledged earlier to get it up online as soon as possible, so it would be available for free to everyone trying to cope with helping the Katrina evacuees.)
(These are not things that need to be done during the first part of this emergency. Rather, this is for the time after that, when Katrina evacuees will be moving from getting immediate emergency assistance to trying to normalize their lives. That is when good programs to help them "up and out" of their situation need to kick in. The following is for that time.)
(For other chapters, look under "Categories" and click on the chapter you want.)
UP AND OUT: A GUIDE TO TRUE COMPASSION FOR THE POOR"
PART II: MOVING UP AND BREAKING OUT OF POVERTY
Section 2: Attitude Adjustments for Helpers
Chapter 21: When The Poor Are True Victims
No one can know many poor people, or work with them long, without hearing of cases where they have been victims. There are cases of terrible abuse, of beatings, of severe neglect, of parents who never loved them or cared for them. There are crime-ridden, dangerous neighborhoods, bad schools, substandard and filthy housing. There are parents who are abusers of drugs or alcohol, or criminals, or prostitutes or pimps. There are parents who pay little attention to their children or their needs, who never show up at a school, who do not teach their children the minimal things they need to know to have a normal life.
Those who work with the poor eventually learn that many such tales are fiction, told solely to play on their sympathies and gain more assistance. But they also learn that so many of them are true that they can almost be predicted. They even learn of heart-breaking situations that the clients do not think to tell them, because they seem “normal” to the client.
There are whole groups of people who have been victims of society. There were African slaves, English bond-servants, Native Americans repeatedly robbed of their land by broken treaties. There were Mexicans who were not welcome in restaurants or hotels. There were the early Chinese and Japanese immigrants, almost without rights. There were also the early Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants, each discriminated against in their time. To this day, there are a few American private clubs which admit neither Jews or African Americans.
American black people were subject to slavery until the Civil War, then to the legalized discrimination of the “Jim Crow” laws until the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and are still subject to prejudice and illegal discrimination to varying degrees.
In addition to victims of society, there are also victims of individuals: of murderers, criminals, abusers, and harassers. There are also victims of fate, such as those who suffer serious illness, injury, disfigurement, or disability. There are those who suffer disasters; tornados, earthquakes, fires and accidents. There are those who suffer terrible losses of family or friends, bearing great pain and grief.
A victim is one who suffers some great loss or injustice through no fault of his or her own. The question is, if some of the poor are poor because they are truly victims, should they be held responsible for their situation? What is more important, should they be expected to climb up out of that poverty through their own efforts? Should they be excused from trying? Are they owed a living? Is the rest of society responsible for subsidizing them?
These are troubling and important questions. They can all but paralyze our thoughts and actions.
It was during my time in prison that I first learned some practical lessons from victims about their problems.
In women’s prisons, they form families. Some women are asked by other women to “adopt” them, and they become their “mothers.” If these adopted women then adopt “children” of their own, their “mother” becomes the “grandmother” of those children. These relationships can be taken very seriously. The mothers are supposed to look out for, and teach, their “children.”
In prison I had over 40 “children” and I do not know how many “grandchildren.” Most of them told me their life stories. There was no doubt at all that many of them never had a break of any kind whatsoever. They were true victims.
But if I told them that they were victims, however true it may have been, an odd thing happened. They stopped trying.
On the other hand, if I did not tell them that, but instead told them that they had to succeed on their own, that no one else was going to do it for them, and that it was the only way, then they tried harder. It really made me think.
One thing I saw in them is that thinking of yourself as a victim makes you feel more powerless. You think your life is determined by something beyond your control, that you cannot change it.
Another thing visible in them was that focusing on being a victim meant being focused on the past. Or it meant being focused on something that probably could not be changed by them, or even in their lifetimes. It meant looking back, not forward.
It also meant wasting precious time and energy on things they probably could not change. That bled them of the energy and resolve needed to do what they could to help themselves.
It was not that they needed to deny that they were victims, or to ignore it. Instead, they needed to learn whatever lessons they could from it. If it were something they could change, such as breaking free from an abusive husband, they needed to change it. But they badly needed to shift their focus to opportunities to move up.
Watching them also showed me that even the worst victims I knew in prison were still capable of doing just about everything for themselves. They did not need to be excused from improving their lives themselves. They did not need others to subsidize them or run their lives for them.
What they needed was not different from what the rest of us need. They needed to make a basic, turn-around decision that they were going to change their lives for the better. Then they needed to use whatever opportunities they could find or make to do that.
Many of the victims I knew, those who tried, managed to do just that.
There are some victims who are so disabled that they cannot do these things for themselves. If so, they may qualify for disability payments for life. But even among the most damaged victims I have known, there were still many things they could do for themselves. In fact, they wanted to do the things that they could. They were very gratified to be able to do them.
Long after prison, observing some 5,000 poor people helped by the three charities I founded, the most disabled person I knew also turned out to be one of the most resourceful. A victim in several ways, she was homeless, abandoned by her husband, and on medication for schizophrenia. In addition, she had two extremely difficult young sons, severely retarded and brain-damaged.
She had problems we could scarcely comprehend. Yet she constantly amazed us with her resourcefulness and independence. The way she cared for and handled her sons, and her own problems, was both touching and magnificent. She did not stay homeless long, either.
Another more recent example was a woman under medical care for bipolar depression, schizophrenia, and HIV infection. Too disabled ever to hold a job, she had enough disability pay to live on. But she still wanted to do as much as she could. She tried valiantly to contribute to her own needs, and even to help others. Doing the best that she could gave her considerable satisfaction.
The things that make many poor people victims also usually contributed to their poverty. Even so, there are still many, many things they can do to climb to a higher level of living and opportunity. Their victimhood usually does not need to stop them.
Subsidies only trap them where they are, putting a cap on their income. Excusing them from doing what they can for themselves, out of sympathy, is helping them to stay in the trap. The cold reality is that their true way out is to help themselves up and out.
Victims who are poor need our understanding. They need a sympathetic ear and our willingness to help. But the last thing they need is an attitude that, because they are victims, they are hopeless. They need affirmation that they can make it anyhow, victim or not. They need encouragement. Most of all, they need hope. That, we can help with.
