Why do Americans hate poor people?

rogerhb

We know that the USA is an exceptional country, in that it has various common behaviours that are considered exceptional in other countries including most other Western nations.

The one I find most remarkable is that Americans have been trained like monkeys to hate the poor. There are many arguments why, such as it's the land of opportunity etc. But in a capitalist ponzi scheme you have to have a lot of poor people otherwise nothing gets done. If people are poor they are blamed for being poor. It's a great system, the rich hate the poor, and they get the middle class to hate the poor, and also get the poor to hate the poor. Remarkable. And then to top it off it call's itself a Christian nation, and if there was one topic that ol' Jesus used to rant on and on about it was the meak and the poor and how they would inherit the earth. Bizarre.

To be an American you need to simultaneously believe contradictory things. Then to top it off, you have people burning out trying not to be poor and hating themselves while they are poor, then you make them pay for health-care. Brilliant.
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thuja

Hey man that's my country you're talking about- the good old US of A. I think hate is not the right word- America prefers to ignore the poor. The conservatives who run this country believe that you have to climb up to the top by your own bootstraps- and you shouldn't need government help to get you there. The problem with that is that you do need help. Those with money and education pass their money down to their kids and help them get a leg up into the professional class while the poor are educated in substandard schools and receive no financial assistance from their family to try and increase their social/financial status.

With the conservatives the US is systematically decreasing benefits to the poor in the form of foodstamps, welfare checks, health benefits and energy assistance and instead are funneling money into wars and tax cuts. I don't believe they hate the poor, but they hate the idea of the government - i.e. the taxpayers- paying money to keep the poor from starving to death. They believe that the poor should be able to "do it on their own". They also believe that tax cuts will increase the productivity of the economy thus providing more jobs for the poor (trickle-down effect). Is it misguided to the point of comedy? Of course.

When Katrina happened and suddenly you saw thousands of desperately poor folks from New Orleans on TV, the image of our country's poor could no longer be hidden away. This is the disconnect of the conservatives. They want you to think the poor will make it on their own as they disconnect the last vestiges of financial support that keeps them from starving or dying of cold (wait till this winter). Its painful for a US citizen to watch- I can understand how someone from abroad must think its insane.

Guest

I've noticed this attitude in American culture as well. It seems to be especially prevalent amongst Neo-cons, and some even go so far as to basically say that poor=evil.
As to why the poor are hated (even by the poor themselves) in America, it could be a combination of :

1) America's protestant heritage. Part of protestant mentality (and I think this really took off with Calvinism) is the idea that material wealth is God's reward for being a good and worthy person. Therefore if you are rich you must be good and worthy. This attitude finds strong support amongst America's charismatic Televangelists, from what I can tell. Never mind that whole "camel through the eye of a needle" business, though.....

2) As for the poor, they would probably be suffering from self-loathing, envy, resentment, and dissatisfaction at their situation. Most people would not be too thrilled about always being in want, nor would they be too pleased about the idea of battling to make a living every day.

3) Consumerist/ materialist mentality of American culture. American culture works under the implicit assumptions that a) money can buy happiness, and b) that you need to constantly buy all kinds of crap to get satisfaction and "meaning" out of life. American culture is all about freedom OF desire (ie you can and should be able to "pursue happiness" by getting rich and satisfying all your desires with money), but shows virtually no interest in freedom FROM desire.

4) It seems TPTB in America foster and encourage this hatred of the poor because it is good for business and profits, and perhaps even because it makes them feel good about themselves.

JohnLudi

Because we are all secretly terrified that it'll happen to us...
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gego · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2005 Posts: 1334

Why do people feel repulsed and cross the street when they see a deformed person?

Because nature has built into us an adversion to defects so that we will not breed with defective members of our species.

Same reason that economic failures repulse us. We don't want to contaminate our genes with defectives. It is a biological imperative of which we are not consciously aware, but obviously it has worked, else it would not have survived the rigors of natural selection with this characteristic intact.

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5088

Au contraire, Rogerhb. We do not hate the poor. Indeed not!

We love the poor.

It's cheaper to buy them - and, they're grateful. Cool

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gego · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2005 Posts: 1334

UIUCstudent01 · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 894

marko

I am an American with socialist leanings and am pretty critical of mainstream American society and culture, more so now than ever, but RogerHB's sweeping anti-American generalizations verge on the abusive.

"Hate the poor"? Man, you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Have you even been to the US? You certainly haven't lived here. Many Americans are ashamed for and by the poor, avert their eyes, don't want to know about them, or as JohnLudi perceptively pointed out, are afraid that they might be in that state themselves. A few rich slimeballs, like Barbara Bush (mother of our disastrous president), are arrogant and contemptuous toward the poor. But hate? I don't see it.

Yes, American social and economic policy is harmful and stupid. Yes, our individualistic ideologies are dysfunctional and manipulated to our disadvantage by the corporate media and the political demagogues. Yes, lots is wrong with this country, but hating the poor is not one of those things.

It would be better, RogerHB, if you stuck to subjects you know something about.

rogerhb

backstop

Rogerhb -

Maybe a more apposite question would be:

Why do Americans hold the poor in such callous contempt ?

I was particularly struck by the number of threads (20+ ?) started on this site for Katrina, compared with the number started for Stan.

And guess which storm killed more, made more destitute, and hit incomparably poorer countries, in what the US claims is its backyard ?

Personally I like a saying of the Gabra people (a "primitive" pasturalist cattle-herding tribe in Northern Kenya :

"The poor man shames us all !"

regards,

Backstop
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nuhax · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 18, 2005 Posts: 62

rogerhb, your post displays your ignorance about America because it's wrong in so many ways, except that the USA is an exceptional country--that part is true Smile

. Here are some points from an American perspective:

Most of the so-called "poor" in America would be considered rich by most world standards. When I was starting my business I was considered poor only because my recent income was below the poverty line (prior to that it was quite high so I had savings). Poor is a relative term compared to the rest of the country, however, the *vast* majority of the "poor" have food, shelter and health provisions as well as many other benefits like govt. relief, special educational loan provisions, tax breaks (no income taxes) etc. Now these people may not be living the good American life SUV, plasma TV, Vegas weekend stereotyped overseas but they aren't starving either. The exception might be some homeless mentally ill (a very small % of the poor) or drug users who fall through the cracks. btw, we also help the poor outside the USA as the largest donor of financial aid in the world.

Why do many people believe government is responsible perpetually for the poor? Outside the US many countries' history is wrapped in monarchies, commonwealths and the like which gives them a historical tendency to look to the government for answers for everything. If something goes wrong it is because the government, the king/queen/leader failed, not because individuals failed. If a person is poor it's because the government is not doing enough. To some extent this happens in the US (more than I would like) but it's not as bad as most countries, rather at least in the past Americans will help a bit but after that you are on your own.

In the US there are many (public and private) programs in place to help people, but the government is not considered to be responsible for taking care of poor people their entire lives. Here there is a deep rooted mistrust of big government. Why? For many years as Americans filled this large country the federal government was very weak, most of the power was at the local level. So people learned to be self-sufficient (which is why they owned guns because there often was no police or the police were corrupt)Plus, America developed from immigrants escaping big government tyranny and fascism and poverty. So because of these factors the country developed in such a way that people looked to themseleves, not the government, for prosperity. And they were poor when they came here already so they couldn't really blame the US government for their poverty.

My great-grandfather immigrated penniless and alone from Italy when he was 17. He was poor but did not need to receive US government handouts to succeed. He succeeded immensely even though he couldn't read or write in either English or ITALIAN. There are millions of stories like this...The difference then was rugged individualism and self-sufficiency and living within ones means, not reliance on the government.

America is exceptional because historically it's been closer to a meritocracy than most other countries (although obviously this is a relative measure). I have friends from Europe (living in US) who espouse all their socialist policies and I ask them -- if you believe in "equality" and helping the poor then why does it take the government do this? You can help make things equal right now! Sell your $45k sports car, buy a used compact car, donate $80k of your $120k salary to some other poor families, get rid of the $800k house and move into a small $150k apartment in a less desirable neighborhood, sell 2 of your 3 computers etc. Then you will be doing your part to make things more equal. Do you think they do this???? Of course not. And they shouldn't because they get paid well because they are damn smart, invent great products used by a lot of people and deserve to get paid more than the cashier at McDonalds who drones on day after day like a robot. We don't like equality here--equal rights but not equality. The moment equality is guaranteed then we'll all be poor.

Regarding health care and the poor in the US--it varies on a state to state basis but in at least CA and NY (two of the largest states) it is extremely easy for people to get health care without paying much. There are government and state programs that cover low income health care. It's actually worse to be lower middle class above poverty because you may not qualify for some of the low income programs.

When I was starting my business and had relatively low income my first year of business. I had to go to the hospital a couple times without helath insurance and the bill was $2500. No problem. I was greeted at the hospital by a nice Pakistani guy who told it ws his job there to make it so I didn;t have to pay anything. Because of my recent income the $2500 was reduced to $80, which could be paid by credit card. Plus they gave me free preventive checkups and tests and prescription discounts.

That's the real thing.

MicroHydro · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Apr 10, 2005 Posts: 1286

The United States was one of the very last nations to outlaw slavery. (Brazil was the last major nation to adopt abolition.)

Does that give you a clue? Americans LOVE the poor - in chains and working themselves to death. It is only the non-working poor that are hated, too much like escaped slaves. Check out the Dred Scott decision.
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CrudeAwakening · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 28, 2005 Posts: 830

perplexd

Way to stir up the hornet's nest, Roger Smile