Proposal for a Solution
In order for a solution to exist, a problem must first exist. Poverty among white Americans is definitely a problem, considering the fact that 45% of those living in poverty are indeed white, and that is a large percentage (although any percentage is too much). This is not only a problem for poor whites, but a problem for all Americans as well – black, white, Hispanics, Asians – thus finding a solution to this problem benefits all parties.
Many people would say that an increase in social services and community service organizations would improvee those communities. In fact, the nature of service is actually crippling to the group of people being served, thus a different approach should be considered; community organizing is the most effective way to empower a community. But before proceeding to find a solution, one must understand the difference between social services and community organizing, and the importance of one over the other.
An old Native American parable comes to mind; A group of people began to take babies out of a river in order to save them from drowning, one after another, trying to bring them back to life. The group of people are exhausted and the work seems relentless. Eventually, one person from the group decides to swim upstream and find out why the babies are drowning, and to try to stop it from occurring in the first place. In this story, the group of people who are spending all of their time and effort saving the babies from drowning represent the work of social services in a community – taking care of the present problem, much like cold medicine remedies the symptoms of a cold. However, the person who attempts to swim upstream to find out why the babies are drowning is a good example of the process of community organizing – getting to the root of a problem and figuring out a solution so that the problem does not happen in the first place, much like eating healthy and getting plenty of sleep so that one does not catch a cold to begin with.
The Problem with Social Services
Social services can be identified as services for those with:
- illnesses (besides hospitals)
- food banks
- disaster relief (such as FEMA)
- welfare
- disability assistance
Social services are usually consumer led efforts or through faith based agencies. Throughout my experiences in community work, I have never seen a social service system that actually brought people to well-being or freed them from poverty. Even though these services may have a strong initiative for empowerment, there are three important problems with social services that prevent the building of strong, empowered communities.
Social Services Limit the Amount of Money Allocated for Low-Income People
Let’s do some math; in Cook County, the four levels of government – federal, state, county, and city – target about $6,000 per person living at or below the poverty line, thus, a mother with three children would be equivalent to $24,000. Considering that three years ago, the median income in Cook County was $23,000, essentially “tax payers are spending for every poor person more money than half of what the people in Cook County make, but Chicago still has poverty” explains McKnight, author of "Why 'Servanthood' Is Bad".
What’s even more surprising is that “out of the money appropriated for those living in poverty in Cook County, the poor received 63% in services and 37% in income” (McKnight, 2). So this means that for the mother and her three children – equivalent to $24,000 – their services recieve $15,000 of the money appropriated to them while they are left with less than $9,000 (less because this money is taxed). That $15,000 goes to health-and-human professionals, such as nurses, doctors, psychologists, social workers, welfare officers, land-clearance officials, and public-housing administrators, but not to the poor.
poor boy at a soup kitchen, L.B. Kurtzer 2007
Social Services Make People Dependent on Them
Another reason why social services do not empower communities is that they base themselves on an individual’s or a community’s inadequacies, such as illiteracy, physical disabilities, or unemployment. “Service systems teach people that their value lies in their deficiencies” (McKnight, 3) and teach them that they need to depend on these services, rather than teach them the value of their own capacities and how to find the solutions to their problems within their own communities. This makes a big difference when trying to find a solution to a social issue, such as racial stereotypes and misrepresentation in the case of white Americans in poverty.
Social services also teach people that the service systems have what the people need, ultimately displacing the community’s capacity to solve their own problems. This displacement and conception that service systems “have what you need” undermines community associations and organizations (McKnight, 4). Even the most genuine of groups also lend a hand in this downward spiral. Unfortunately, “many churches, pastors, and faith based organizations have become the agents of [service] systems. They themselves may not understand whom they represent, but they refer people to systems. Instead of building communities, they help take responsibility away from the community and give it to professionals” (4). Social service systems and those who support them falsely relieve the threat that the community is facing, such as gentrification, poverty, or hunger, and without that threat, the people in the community have no reason to organize themselves and become self-sufficient enough to solve that issue.
Saul Alinsky, a famous Chicagoan community organizer who, through his work in the 1960’s, laid the groundwork for grassroots political organizing and has been an inspiration for many, had once said that one should never do things for others that they can do for themselves, explains Loretta Pyles, author of Progressive Community Organizing: a Critical Approach for a Globalizing World. It is an interesting idea, especially for those who are involved in the noble pursuit of serving others, however the idea that Alinsky was trying to get across is that one should instead help others help themselves. This draws the line between social services and community organizing.
Hurricane Katrina and Other Examples of Successful Community Organizing
In the case of Hurricane Katrina, locals of New Orleans who did not have the means nor the ability to evacuate their homes sought safety and higher ground as the storm and flooding followed. New Orleans prisons and their inmates were abandoned for days, locked in without food or water. Government officials, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were clearly absent for days, thus citizens had to offer support, take care of each other, and in many cases, save lives when the authorities would not.
Locals using a small boat to carry children and rescue other survivors while everyone looks for a dry and secure place to stay.
Evacuees and those who stayed and survived reconnected with each other, eventually advocating for the levee board to be accountable for the flooding, utility and health-care services, FEMA assistance, insurance payments, and the right to return public housing to New Orleans and its residents. This is an example of “classical community organizing – organizing people, getting information, identifying grievances, confronting those in power who have the ability to make decisions, and rebuilding communities” (Pyles, 3).
A sign left outside of what was someone's house. Many people came back to New Orleans in order to rebuild.
The government’s involvement during and after Hurricane Katrina left much to be desired, however with government services taken out of the equation, communities were forced to take care of themselves. The majority of those people who were struck the hardest by the hurricane were those living in poverty, dependent on social services prior to the disaster. Katrina was the ultimatum in which people had to step up and do their part, exposing everyone’s capacity to survive, because that is what people do; people survive. Communities do not identify themselves by their needs, but by their resilience.
For example, Humbolt Park is a Chicago community known for its resilience towards the threat of gentrification. On June 12th, 1966 a young Puerto Rican man was shot by a Chicago police officer. According to witnesses, he was not armed, however the police said he was. The shooting triggered a three day riot - known as the Division Street Riots - but ultimately led to tremendous neighborhood development, such as the creation of educational, housing and cultural institutions that remain in Humboldt Park to this day.
Puerto Rican flag monument in Humbolt Park, Chicago
A Humbolt Park woman wears a celebratory costume for the the six-day-long Puerto Rican Festival, which is only out-ranked by the Taste of Chicago in largest Chicago festivals
The community consistently supports local business and shops in order to keep the people and the resources within that area, thus a strong sense of empowerment lies within the Puerto Rican people of that neighborhood. Without that threat, big or small, towards a community’s well being – a natural disaster or a social issue – empowerment cannot flourish.
The Solution for Poor White Communities
In essence, community organizing is the process in which one helps a community helps themselves by finding another’s gifts, contributions and capacities, using them, and finding their place in the community. By doing so, the social issues in the community are then exposed and left for the members of that community to deal with, rather than letting professionals try to take care of it.
However, to make this concept truly applicable, one must take a critical approach to community organizing. This critical approach and ability to analyze are the foundations of effective organizing. “If one has no critical thinking skills to observe the unique elements of a community and deconstruct them, then one will blindly intervene through service without understanding the roots of the issues or the deep seated strengths in a community” (Pyles, 10).
I propose these steps for a critical approach to community empowerment with the poor white community:
- The first step to take in order for empowerment is to bring awareness to all parties of this situation. The fact that so many people are either not aware or ignoring the amount of whites who live in poverty is a large part of the problem and needs to be addressed. Many social issues are advertised, like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on CNN, however just raising awareness and bringing truth to the situation is enough to initiate change.
- The next step for social change is to make sure that one is “helping others help themselves”. Peddling services instead of building communities is the best way someone is guaranteed not to help (McKnight 2). At the last supper, Jesus had said “This is my commandment; love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know the business of the one they serve.” Jesus was trying to communicate that to be weighted down by service and servantry is not right. The goal is to be a friend.
- Finally, the establishment of grassroots organizations that work to help connect the community members with each other. Regarding Chicago’s neighborhoods, over the late 20th and early 21st century has minority groups made great strides in overcoming issues such as gentrification (Humboldt Park), housing, hunger, and crime rates in which grassroots organizations can be credited for. The potential for empowerment exists within the community and the people who live there, but it must first be inspired by others, and that is the purpose for community based organizations. There are thousands of organizations in Chicago alone that serve many different kinds of populations of all colors, ages, economic statuses, educations, nationalities, that have helped neighborhoods improve over time in the areas they were lacking before. By introducing critical thinking within these kinds of organizations in areas such as the Appalachians - not to show these people what they are doing wrong, rather guide them in the best direction towards a more stable future – will greatly improve both the misrepresentations of groups living in poverty and poor white America.
Poverty is unfortunate in any color or demographic, and racial stereotypes should not be one of them. I am a firm believer that neglect of any group of people in need can be turned around, however the help must start from within. Consistency was never a human trait and American society has a history of changing for the better, and even though poverty in white America is prevalent for many contributing factors, it does not have to be that way.
