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The reality in America is the reality of the class-line. The class-line refers to the existence of a rigid class structure that rarely allows or encourages upward mobility. The established classes have been referenced as poverty, lower-class, middle-class and upper-class. The class-line works along and within the established classes. Essentially the class-line maintains a socio-economic structure of those who “have” and those “have not”.

Poverty in the United States is often imposed and prolonged by the class-line and the socio-economic structures. Therefore, individuals and families living in poverty have no identifiable trait, quality or characteristic that predisposes them to living in poverty. People living in poverty in the U.S. merely exist at the bottom of a rigid societal class/caste structure. Therefore it is the duty of our entire society to amend our approaches to human welfare and rights.

There are plethoras of statistics that expose the imbalance of wealth in the U.S. In addition research has been conducted on the existence of the class-line within class groups. It is important to acknowledge the discrepancies in economics and the limitations of the U.S. socio-economic structure to understand that the imbalance negatively affects us all. We must all heed the fact that we all are invested in our future.

In America the dominating school of thought regarding the reasons for poverty exudes a “we versus them” mentality. Most often the cause of a person’s poverty is perceived as their problem and their fault. Under this pretense, poverty is then perceived as stemming from the inability of the lower-socioeconomic class to play a competent, educated and able role in their attempt to achieve socioeconomic advancement. The mentality has kept us separated and unwilling to collaborate to end our collective struggle to provide for our people. In addition, the logic of “we versus them” ignores the role that society plays in funneling, limiting and maintaining people in the economic imbalance and structure.

The “we” role and ideology is held by people who believe themselves to be economically better off than others. This role and ideology is often found in various classes regardless of the reality of the individual’s position in the economic structure. Therefore the “we” in any given class grouping often ignores and/or disregards their limited economic status and focuses on their privilege over others. The focus, however, is not salient. The “we” learns to enjoy the feeling of privilege over others and it begins to internalize the feelings as earned. Once the actions and feelings seem to have been earned, the “we” can justify perceiving a lack of effort in others. The “we” often are blinded to their role in an effort to guiltlessly justify under thought and/or ignorant rationale regarding the reasons people live in poverty. The rational is detrimental in that it stigmatizes people living in poverty as lazy, unmotivated and uneducated. The stigma attached to people in poverty is expanded upon to become a reaction of excusing, ignoring and sustaining an inequitable socio-economic structure. By ignoring the reality that most individuals are exploited by the structure we sustain the “we versus them mentality”, the class-line and economic imbalance.

In our “heart of hearts” we know: No person has a choice about the socio-economic class they are born into. We do however participate in our decisions about what we do with what we have. It would be naïve to assume that we all receive equal access and opportunity. Therefore, assuming that people in poverty are lazy is to ignore the reality of our social structure and to assume that the U.S. has a fluid class-structure. To the contrary in the U.S. wealth and socioeconomic status is rigid, rarely earned and most often afforded through the hard work of lower-classes.

Ideology aside the main issue with wealth in America is that the people who live under its robe are most often having their human rights violated. Examples here include subpar living standards, starvation, ill-treated water and lack of health care. Our world has the resources and our people have the ability to sustain our entire population. We must all become committed to ourselves through each other.

Anthony Galluci
The Tompkins County Workers’ Center, formerly the Living Wage Coalition, was founded in 1995. Today, the Workers’ Center is made up of hundreds of individuals and over fifty organizations (unions, religious and community groups, etc).

Visit their website at http://www.tclivingwage.org/ to find out more about them.

Gen 41:19 is the first use of the word “poor” in the bible and I think it’s no coincidence that it’s a word first used to describe bodies.  In this instance, in Pharaoh’s dream, “fat and sleek” or “poor and thin” reference the bodies of animals but in this era of antiquity similar language can also be applied to the standards of beauty or ugliness ascribed to human bodies.  Especially the bodies of women.  At any rate, this passage is Pharaoh’s nightmare.  It becomes a nightmare the moment the poor, thin cows enter his dream.  It is poor bodies that terrorize Pharaoh in his sleep.  He calls them, literally, “evil.”

Have we finished yet the project of fearing and degrading the bodies of the poor?  The standards for discerning and measuring embodied poverty may have changed since Pharaoh’s day.  But aren’t we still so often desperate to prove the “otherness” of poverty to our own lives and bodies?  Not in Egypt, he said.  Nothing so ugly should ever have the audacity to show its face in Pharaoh’s back yard.  And what about our own back yards, front steps and fire escapes?  What images do we keep out of our own family photo albums?  God help us if the world knew the shame so many of us carry in our own hearts and minds about the poor bodies we know, the poor bodies we have been, or perhaps about the poor bodies we continue to be.  God help us, because Pharaoh certainly will not.

“Lean of flesh” in our own place and time has a nicer ring to it.  We’re all into this, we’re into fitness today.  If we can pay for it, make time for it.  We’re into eating healthy, too, if we can pay for that.  Those of us who can’t pay, though?well, we’re still a neoliberal Pharaoh’s nightmare.  Still showing up in his dreams at night, starving for justice and ready to take it.  And our bodies?  In the 2009 U.S. version of that dream?  Asthmatic, diabetic, homeless, incarcerated, undocumented, unemployed, underpaid, uninsured, exhausted, maltreated and overworked, malnourished and of every size.  Pharaohs don’t like to remember bodies like ours.  They don’t like to take our picture, unless it’s to scare somebody else.  Or mock us as subjects.  Just the sight of us sends that American dream spinning into a nightmare.

But was it really a nightmare, or did Pharaoh just happen to finally wake up one day?  And maybe that was the scary part for him?  To see how close to home those ugly, skinny, poor cows actually were?  It is indeed terrifying when poverty comes home.  When it does show up in Pharaoh’s Egypt, in my back yard, your own home, my own family.  It’s terrifying and it’s also profoundly common.  And that’s what we want to start talking about.  Those of us who participated in the Poverty Initiative’s immersion course in New York City and upstate New York would like to start that conversation with you all right now, sharing some personal testimonies from the trip in the small groups you’re sitting in.  And please, keep the conversation alive once you leave here today.

By the way that shame didn’t last for long because when Auntie came home, she came home from work like anybody else. She was good at what she did and was a sought after employee in town, so the Judge did whatever it took to keep her in his employ. Auntie owned the home she lived in and shared so freely with all of our family. Auntie always had food in the cupboard and refrigerator. Auntie always gave one tenth of her earnings to the church. Auntie always had dignity enough to love me like I was a child of God’s promise.

My great-grandmother had retired by the time we visited her in New York City. She had followed her employer to New York City. She was so valued that she had an apartment in New York, a home and property in Jacksonville, Florida. She was considered a member of the family with much to contribute not only to the household affairs but the upbringing of socially active rich children. I remember her telling me the story of how those adult 30 something children cried for scores of minutes in the train station as she made her way back to Jacksonville. At least in New York they visited her up in Harlem every week.

These two women in my life taught me at an early age that a job well done is a respectable job. They taught me how to walk out the front door to work with dignity and back into the home with that dignity still intact. I have cleaned the toilet bowls of a bed and breakfast. As an actor I have done living history tours of the African American input to the history of a tourist Victorian seaside resort. I have seen how many children have acquired a college education on the work of household management.

So how does that relate to Poverty in the US in 2009? Well, let’s put it in perspective. My Auntie and great-grandmother were given a fair wage. They had contracted hours that were respected by their employers. They had incredible health care. They had paid vacation. They were considered valued and vital to smooth operations of the households in which they worked. For both of them, I remember how they asserted that their families came first. And they always, always had Sunday off to go to church.

So why is it that in the year 2009 Domestic Workers United has to fight for these basic rights? What happened in our society that experience of my Aunt and great-grandmother became the freakish exception rather than the norm? Is it because although Black, they were born in this country? Has prejudice made it alright to mistreat people who serve in positions of domesticity today? Is it outright racism? Is it the devaluation of a person because they work for people rather than this corporate entity most people think they work for? A corporate entity in which a few gross the top dollars? So who exactly do those who hire service and domestic workers actually think they are working for?!

I have been moved by the struggles we have linked with during this immersion. But my heart aches because at the root of so much of what we have seen is the disrespect of the value another human being’s life. From the lack of clean air spaces in the Bronx to remembering the attack on the homeless village in Thomkins Square Park in 1988—why is it still okay to sacrifice so many for the well being of a few? Yes, it’s time to stop all this talk about lowering poverty, thereby putting value on who deserves to eat, drink water, have basic rights for proper working conditions. The only paradigm that will work is a new one. The social movement must be to end poverty, period. Each immersion, rather each day I walk out into the world I see this more clearly.

Derrrick McQueen
UTS

200,000 – the amount of backpay and punitive damages won by Susan DoYea Kim after she sued Nail Plaza.

60,000 – the number of trucks that enter the South Bronx every week

16,000 – the number of trucks that enter the South Bronx every day

2,300 – the number of members belonging to Domestic Workers United

400 – the number of people who came out to celebrate with Adolfo after he won the lawsuit against his employer, Flor de Mayo

375 – the amount (in millions) the city is willing to pour into building a new jail set to be located in the Bronx, but not improving the current school systems.

100 – the number of people needed to fill the bus the women from Domestic Workers United are taking from NYC to Albany on February 10.

95 – the percentage of the taxi drivers workforce who are immigrants

74 – the number of years since the specific exclusion of domestic workers from the National Labor Relations Act

46 - the billions of  pounds of food that are thrown away per year

40 - the percentage of revenue lost by the taxi drivers when they were blocked from working below 14^th street post 9/11.

16 – the number of hours some domestic workers work per day

15 – the number of garbage transfer stations in the South Bronx

10 – the number of months it took for the workers of Flor de Mayo restaurant to win a lawsuit against the owners of Flor de Mayo.

6.5 – the number of years Patricia worked for an employer before she was physically assaulted by her employer.

5 – the percentage of pay each taxi driver loses with every credit card transaction

5 – the number of years the Domestic Workers Union has waited for passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

2 – the hourly wages paid to Latina Women who work at Kim’s Vegetables located at 900 Amsterdam Avenue.

2.5 – the number of acres per 1000 persons is the commonly accepted standard of open space; people in the south Bronx have about .5 acres of open space

2 – the percentage of open space overall in the South Bronx

2 – the number of union supermarkets that close for every Super Walmart that opens.

1 – the most powerful number on the earth.  One is the number of people it takes to make a difference.  One is ME.  One is YOU.

Kymberly McNair – UTS Student

Rev. Dr. Jim Henery, Pastor from First Presbyterian in Ithaca -

We sit here in a park that seems rather bucolic right now.  In about three or four months, this park becomes a camping ground.  My door is open five to six days a week to offer help.  The church is not a place where they would worship in, they might use the toilet, they come in for help or for money, for a bus ticket or to go to the gas station.  They don’t come in to worship.  They say, “I’ve been to DSS, Catholic Charities, and they won’t help me.”  They use us here as a kind of human aid society; they come here seeking help.  They get angry when I tell them I can’t give them any [more] money.  I have something, but I can’t do it all.  In some cases we are the last and the only place where they can get something.  They’re not seeking prayer, they’re seeking something tangible.  I’ll pray for you, but I haven’t got any money.  That’s the struggle for progressive, ideologically transcendent Ithaca.

It’s a wonderfully philanthropic community, but church itself or faith community is not the primary source of the shakers and movers in this town.  We have to find our role in dealing with some of the see things you are talking about.  In some communities the church is the place people will go to first, but not here.  We’re the institution where people go when they can’t get anything done anywhere else.

We’re just now discussing the economic crisis.  We haven’t been touched much by what we’ve been seeing in the news.  The concern for poverty is not as relevant.  We are beginning to struggle and maybe we’ll become more intensely involved as a church or faith community.  We are sometimes the last respite for this community.

Rev. Rich Rose, Pastor of the First Baptist of Ithaca
Something that becomes more clear to me as my pastoral time goes on is that there is an ideological struggle, people hear this message of love, peace, acceptance, joy and hope.  They really believe the complete opposite.  They believe in systems that oppress people.  The challenge for me is to use that 15 minutes to the best of my ability to remind people that they are loved and they are valuable and they are wonderfully made and they are capable.  We are constantly reminded of the complete opposite.  These are the things that make them into a valuable person.

The most valuable thing in life is a good friend, somebody who shows you kindness, who sits with you for five minutes.  The base job of the church is reminding people of their own value and showing love and kindness and hope.  That has to be the constant message.  That seems basic and almost juvenile.  People forget that.  When people go out to wherever they are working and wherever they are working, people need to remember they have value to give.  We talk about the kingdom as coming, but Jesus said the kingdom is within you.  We get discouraged that we think the kingdom is down the road but we have something to give, something to connect.  That’s a better concept than considering that the system is broken.

The reason why people continue to be disempowered is because they think they are supposed to be disempowered.  (Internalized oppression).  Unless people believe they are of value, changing the structures won’t matter.  We function in a system that rewards people for being ruthless.  The counter-voice of the gospel is that you are sufficient in who you are.  Where else do we hear that we are something special?  Mister Rogers!   If the goal of the church was to empower people with a value of self, then people would work from the bottom up.  [They would say] “We have the numbers.”  People need to feel like they have the right to say that.

Being born in the Bronx and raised on the Lower East Side in Manhattan in the mid-50s and early 60s, I never felt poor.  My parents both worked to feed us and provided the basic necessities.  We attended church on Wednesday afternoon and Sunday mornings.  We had good Christmases and enjoyed all of the other holidays.  Our family was blessed but not without racial tension.

When I was in the 9^th grade, I had a teacher tell me that I wasn’t good enough because I came from the projects.  That all I was going to be good for was to have babies and go on welfare.  She told me that’s what we do.  What I heard was because you are not white, you will never be successful.

The system, the media have a way of making you think that white people are successful and that poverty doesn’t exist for them.  Going upstate has opened my eyes to the truth.  The white families in the inner cities of Ithaca and Syracuse are in poverty.  It surprised me that food pantries are opened almost every day of the week so that they can eat.  Food is a necessity, not a privilege.

Although I didn’t feel this racial tension from the white people upstate like I did in New York City, there’s a class thing going on.  Poor people are being discriminated against which is clearly not right.

It was said over and over and I agree:  A poor man’s revolution needs to happen nationally for all mankind.  Let’s all do our part to make this happen.  Thank you Poverty Initiative for this reminder.  We are not alone.

Pastor Craig, took a remarkable step of faith…he allowed someone else to finish his sermon in an impromptu fashion. He trusted enough that God’s grace would abound and someone would just show up and immerse themselves…and they did. Kymberly McNair was one of the five who stood up and shared her “Jordan” story and bridged her past and present with what this Poverty Initiative Immersion journey has meant to her; she shed some hope by reminding us what the bible states about us how  “we are fearfully and wonderfully made,”  but she also challenged our  own complacency by asking us to disturb the peace as we come up from our own immersion story of past and present.

Immersing Yourself

Here is a short video clip of this heartfelt and sincere call to come up from no where. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfMKY9tmI60
Patricia Santiago, UTS Student

From Kymberly:  I should add that at the beginning of this reflection I spoke about baptism in my tradition.  I’m a Baptist and we fully immerse.  We uncover the pool that is situated under the pulpit, my Pastor puts on his hip-waders and people come to the pool for full immersion.  Sometimes people get so caught up in the moment that they want to get dunked again.  This Immersion experience is like being immersed again, but I’m not so sure it’s an immersion I was looking forward to.   It hasn’t been easy to rehearse or re-immerse myself into my history.

–Ammon

The Poverty Initiative group was invited to University United Methodist Church to explain to them the work that the Poverty Initiative does at Union Theological Seminary.  We arrived in time to join them for their community breakfast.  I learned from some of the men there that this breakfast was one of the largest groups of people they’ve had at their breakfast.  During the roundtable discussion, Mary-Ellen, Ammon, and John explained what the PI is doing right now and the plans for future events.

In attendance were Pastor Craig French, several members of the UUMC church and a small group of Poverty Initiative and Union folks:  Anne Hillman, Patricia Santiago, Mason Jenkins, Carmen Cuadrado, Star Jackson, John Wessel-McCoy, Ammon Ripple, Rachel Barnhart, Mary Ellen Kris, Nkosi Anderson and Kymberly McNair.  Following are some comments made by some of the UUMC members.

Debbie Virgo is a member of UUMC and the Sponsor Coordinator for Interfaith Works, the Center for New Americans Refugee Resettlement Program.

My job is to work with a typical church to show them what it’s like to be poor.  We all live in Syracuse, but we don’t see it [poverty] everyday.  They [residents of Syracuse] don’t understand that the housing is substandard.  People in the community don’t see the poverty and it’s my job to make sure they see it.

Betty is a fiery, outspoken member of UUMC.  She wanted to know if “you separate any of this from political realities around the world and thinking about the world overpopulation and what we can do about it.  I’m thinking about inane dependence on fossil fuel.  You can’t eliminate the problems on the street without looking at the bigger picture.  It’s radical stuff.”

Stu, another member of UUMC raised the issue of consolidation of services by drawing our attention to the overabundance of volunteer fire departments and hook and ladder companies.  He wants to know why so many residents of their county and city “aren’t using our voting power to advocate for consolidation of services?  The money saved through consolidation could certainly be utilized elsewhere.”

Margo has worked in the Food Pantry for about eight years now.  She spoke about how

there are so many people coming:  A grandmother who has three of her grandchildren and is raising them because their mother is in jail, or somebody who has just been released from jail and needs assistance.  We sit there and say, “How can I help other than the little bit we can do in terms of food and clothing.  We do have access to other services, but still, there needs to be more than this few minute exchange on Friday mornings.”

When we started we were just handing out bags then we expanded into the parlor because we wanted to be more hospitable.  We wanted to invite people into our “home.”  We have books and we have clothing.  That gave a completely different look to the entire thing.  We have just moved downstairs and have tried to create the same feeling.

There is a bit of turnover now. I think we are seeing more people now who have lost jobs.  Last Thanksgiving compared to this thanksgiving – that has expanded from a couple dozen dinner bags to about 200 dinner bags.

Joe also works in the Food Pantry.  He said that it makes him want to cry when he sees that almost 75% of the men who sit down to breakfast are African-American.  Joe knows he’s only one man, but he knows his living doesn’t have to be in vain.   Listen to what he had to say about his approach.

As the discussion came to a close, Betty asked one of the most simplest questions we’ve heard over the course of the immersion.

Think about it, what does any person need to change their life?  Good health, education a sense of community that you belong to and maybe just some plain luck.

Maybe it is just plain luck or maybe it takes a movement of people working together to end poverty.

May peace prevail on earth

On the day we toured through Harlem, we visited St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, pastored by the Rev. Dr. Earl Kooperkamp.  St. Mary’s is situated between a police station and apartment buildings.  In the courtyard adjacent to the church is a Peace Pole.  According to the Peace Pole Project, a Peace Pole acts as a silent prayer and message for peace on Earth.

It’s ironic that the Peace Pole is standing outside of a church that believes in disturbing the peace to bring the peace.  After all, they are known as the “We Are Not Afraid” church.  The mission statement of this little church says that they are a “not afraid” church

standing up as a community of faith in West Harlem to pursue justice and peace for the poor and oppressed, to pray and care for the sick, lonely and at risk and to put into practice the message of the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. “Do not be afraid” Luke 1:30.

Santa Maria Manhattanville es la iglesia “sin mideo,” buscando paz y justicia al lado de los pobres y los oprimidos, rezando por cuidando a los enfermos, solitarios y marginados, y practicando el mensaje del Evangelio con la fuerza del Espiritu Santo. “No temas” San Lucas 1:30 ”sin mideo,” buscando paz y justicia al lado de los pobres y los oprimidos, rezando por cuidando a los enfermos, solitarios y marginados, y practicando el mensaje del Evangelio con la fuerza del Espiritu Santo. “No temas” San Lucas 1:30

Rev. Kooperkamp, isn’t afraid to speak out and to Columbia University’s demand for space at the expense of local residents.  He isn’t afraid to speak out against Michael R. Bloomberg, a mayor whose main objective is to build the city up and press the poor residents further down into the ground.  He isn’t at all afraid to lay down in front of the Columbia University’s eminent domain bulldozers.  He doesn’t have a choice,  and he’s looking for volunteers to join him.

Are you ready to disturb the peace?