the rix mix

"As long as we consider the poor under the dominant point of view, namely, as handicapped capitalists, we understand nothing. The dignity of the poor lies in their being, not in their having and not having; the destruction of their dignity is the destruction of their solidarity with one another and their vision together."

Dorothee Soelle

Posted this quote to my Facebook wall with some expected positive responses, & one from a guy who didn't quite get it, which surprised me at first because he's one of the smartest people I know. He wrote, "Sounds to me like a very eloquent rationale for why the poor should stay poor, or are somehow better by being poor."

I understand why he could read it that way. Soelle was a Christian theologian, & her focus was a theology of the poor. I like the quote because it can stand apart from the Christian (if not a spiritual) context. I don't even agree with some of her views, but I let them challenge me & learn from them, & they're strong counter-arguments to ultra-right theologies that wrap themselves in a kind of libertarian disguise, the kind that poisoned one of my two good-hearted nephews, turned him away from the best of Methodist practice & tradition.

Soelle was familiar with the desperate, hopeless poverty of the Third World & of America's urban street homeless. She hardly wants them to stay desperately poor. She's expressing the Biblical view of the poor. In the Bible, the poor are not characterized as those who have failed to be not poor; they are just what they are, & they receive preferential treatment from the prophets & from Jesus for being what they are. When Jesus brings the poor together, he demonstrates that, in solidarity, they have the power to feed each other. He presents them with a better vision of themselves. Pax Romana was no democracy; it was occupation & indifference at best, & brutal repression at worst. You could be executed for weeping at an execution. The poor had to take care of each other or they would die individually.

My own view of the poor is not of the homeless, but of people who do have roofs over their heads & food in their cupboards, they try very hard to maintain a simple dignity. Some of them are what used to be called "genteel poor," There was no great stigma in being genteel poor when there was more civility & most middle class people made do with simpler comforts. The most basic assault on this dignity is crime committed by the poor upon the poor. There is a great difference between a crime-ridden poor neighborhood & a relatively safe mixed economic one. In the safe ones, the poor reside near working & middle classes & are not completely invisible. They aren't trapped. They have dignity. The dignity shows itself in things as simple as more Christmas decorations, front yard flowers, & people walking their little dogs after dark.

Our better treatment of fixed-income seniors provides a good example of how to accord poor people some dignity. There are cities in Jersey where fortunate seniors reside in decent subsidized housing, have access to cheap or free local transportation, & congregate at all-day senior centers. The centers in Elizabeth offer lunch & recreation, but also workshops on Medicare, Social Security, health & nutrition. The Mayor regularly visits the centers, which reminds seniors that they can vote - against the Mayor if they don't like what he's doing. Unfortunately, not all seniors receive these services. But there's the model. We know what to do. We know we shouldn't say to seniors, "You are failed young people." (Our popular culture does that.)

The poor need more: education, job training, counseling. But first, they need what the seniors have.

The dignity of the poor lies in their being....

Labels: blogging against theocracy, religion