AntiPoverty and AntiRacism

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Anti-Poverty and Anti-Racism

• by Paul C. Gorski - gorski_at_EdChange.org

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What We (Think We) Know

• Class and Poverty Awareness Quiz
• Humility is key
• Cognitive dissonance is inevitable

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Introductory Stuff The Agenda

• Introductory Stuff (in progress)
• Stereotypes of Low-Income People
• Reconsidering Key Concepts
• Shifts of Consciousness
• Being an Anti-Poverty, Anti-Racism Activist

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Part II

• Oppressors Are Us
• Stereotypes of Low-Income People

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Pairs Name all the stereotypes you know about
  low-income people
• And note where they come from

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Stereotype Laziness
• Ah, but According to the Economic Policy
  Institute (2002), poor working adults spend more
  hours working per week on average than their
  wealthier counterparts.

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Stereotype Dont Value Education
• Ah, but Low-income parents hold the exact same
  attitudes about education as wealthy parents
  (Compton-Lilly, 2003 Lareau Horvat, 1999
  Leichter, 1978 Varenne McDermott, 1986).

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Stereotype Substance Abuse
• Ah, but Alcohol abuse is far more prevalent
  among wealthy people than poor people (Galea,
  Ahern, Tracy, Vlahov, 2007). And drug use
  equally distributed across poor, middle class,
  and wealthy communities (Saxe, Kadushin, Tighe,
  Rindskopf, Beveridge, 2001).

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Stereotype Crime and Violence
• Ah, but Poor people do not commit more crime
  than wealthy peoplethey only commit more visible
  crime. Furthermore, white collar crime results
  in much greater economic (and life) losses than
  so-called violent crime.

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Stereotype Language-Deficient
• Ah, but Linguists have known for decades that
  all varieties of English (such as Black English
  vernacular or Appalachian varieties) are equally
  complex in structure and grammar (Gee, 2004
  Hess, 1974 Miller, Cho, Bracey, 2005).

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Stereotypers Are Us

• Where, then, do these stereotypes come from, and
  whose purposes do they serve?

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Part III

• Revisiting Key Concepts

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Key Concepts

• The Culture of Poverty
• Deficit Theory

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Key ConceptThe Culture of Poverty

• The hidden rules quiz
• Where youve seen it in

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Key ConceptThe Deficit Theory

• Example Paynes reflections on Katrina (see
  handout)
• Where youve seen it

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Part IV

• Shifts of Consciousness

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Shift of Consciousness 1

• Must be willing to think critically about those
  things about which Ive been taught not to think
  critically
• Corporate capitalism
• Two-party political system
• Work of IMF and World Bank

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Shift of Consciousness 2

• Must acknowledge class-related inequities and
  oppressionsand understand them as systemic and
  not just individual acts and practices
• So lifting people out of poverty one by one is
  not the same thing as eliminating poverty

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Shift of Consciousness 3

• Must See Our Socialization
• How are we socialized to perpetuate the myths?
• How do we perpetuate myths and oppression even
  through well-intended work?

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Shift of Consciousness 4

• Must challenge stereotypes
• From youngsters, not-so-youngsters, peers,
  bosses, whoever
• And if you dont have the information to
  challenge the stereotypes, then actively seek it
  out

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Shift of Consciousness 5

• Must refuse to mistake socioeconomic class or
  race with culture
• Poverty and racism are sociopolitical in
  naturetheyre done to people

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Shift of Consciousness 6

• Must be willing to unsettle and discomfort
• Institutional likeability
• Who am I trying to keep comfortable, and at whose
  expense?

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Shift of Consciousness 7

• Must be careful to avoid saviour syndrome or
  messiah mentality or missionary mindset
• This is an expression of supremacy and privilege
• Who, exactly, is being saved in anti-poverty
  and anti-racism work?

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Shift of Consciousness 8

• Focus on understanding the cultures and forces of
  power and privilege, not only on the experiences
  and cultures of the dispossessed other
• We cannot understand class and poverty without
  understanding the influence of the wealthy elite

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Part VII

• What We Can Do

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What We Can Do Fight for Low-Income Students

• Fight to keep low-income children from being
  placed unfairly into lower academic tracks.
• And fight to get them into gifted and talented
  programs.
• Or fight educational tracking altogether.

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What We Can Do Fight for Low-Income Students

• Insist on equitable schooling conditions for all
  students.
• Fight what Kozol calls the savage inequalities
  of our schools

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What We Can DoEducate About Class and Poverty

• Lack of living wage jobs
• Dissolution of labor unions
• Growing wealth gap
• Corporate control of government and schools
• Educate toward fixing these injustices rather
  than fixing poor people and people of color

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What We Can DoTake Back Our Heroes

• Resist whitewashing or commercialization of
  social justice heroes who fought for class equity
• MLK
• Helen Keller
• Mark Twain
• Black Panthers

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What We Can DoHelp Individuals Fight Systems

• If all of our anti-poverty work goes into
  addressing symptoms rather than the underlying
  injustices, nothing will change.
• If all of our work goes into fighting the
  underlying injustices while ignoring immediate
  symptoms, people will die.

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What We Can DoSelf-Assess

• Consider Is your work, or that of your
  organization, moving us closer to an equitable
  and just society or world, or is it, despite good
  intentions, sustaining inequity and injustice?

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What We Can DoDo Informed Work

• Reject the temptation to use popular models (such
  as Ruby Paynes) just because theyre popular.
  Ask why theyre popular. And opt, instead, for
  models that are based on evidence and proved
  effectiveness.

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What We Can DoEngage Low-Income Folks

• As we know, the experts are the communities.
  Avoid the missionary approach by asking what we
  can do rather doing what we think we ought to do.
• Work with rather than for.

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What We Can DoLearn

• Never stop identifying our own class and race
  biases. (And yes, you do have them.)

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What We Can DoSee and Work at Intersections

• Environmental Justice Poverty
• Environmental Justice Racism
• Media Conglomeration Poverty Racism
• Privatization of Schools Poverty Racism
• War Poverty Racism (see MLK)
• Globalization Poverty Racism
• And so on...

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What We Can DoEvaluate Materials

• Make sure your organizations materials do not
  stereotypeeven if subtlyeconomically
  disadvantaged people

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Part VIII

• Stages of Anti-Poverty Activism
• (see handout)

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Quotes

• And one day we must ask the question, Why are
  there forty million poor people in America? And
  when you begin to ask that question, you are
  raising questions about the economic system,
  about a broader distribution of wealth. When you
  ask that question, you begin to question the
  capitalistic economy.

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Quotes

• I am a socialist because I believe that
  socialism will solve the misery of the world
  give work to the man who is hungry and idle and
  at least give to little children the right to be
  born free.

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Quotes

• In a country well governed poverty is something
  to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed
  wealth is something to be ashamed of.

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Quotes

• The distinctions separating the social classes
  are false in the last analysis they rest on
  force.

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Quotes

• We have deluded ourselves into believing the
  myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of
  the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices.
  Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black
  slaves and continues to thrive on the
  exploitation of the poor, both black and white,
  both here and abroad.

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Quotes

• Who are the oppressors? The few the King, the
  capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and
  superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many
  the nations of the earth the valuable
  personages the workers they that make the bread
  that the soft-handed and idle eat.

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• Paul C. Gorski
• gorski_at_edchange.org
• http//www.EdChange.org