Poverty Isn't Racist

My daughter wrote this for an assignment this week and wanted me to share it with all of you here on PNN.  She would appreciate any feedback, comments or thoughts.

Being poor and white, people overlook you and often don’t think that you’re in need of help. Black and poor, now that’s a thing that society as a whole notices, accepts and understands. It is felt that simply because you’re white you have an upper hand in life. This is true to a certain degree but all-in-all, poor is poor no matter what color you throw into the mix.  Poverty isn’t racist. Society needs to start realizing that it’s not only the “minorities” that can be, and are, poor. Terms such as “white trash” and “trailer trash” are, believe it or not, referring to the poor whites that are seen living in trailers in the all-to-famous trailer parks.

Growing up, my mother, sisters and I were considered in the “poor” category financially. I say financially only because in the aspect of family and friends, we were rich. We were financially unstable to the point where we couldn’t even afford a trailer in a trailer park.

We lived in a three bedroom, one bath house that my great-great grandfather built 100 years before my time. One would look at this and say that we had a house so how could we be poor? The truth is we didn’t pay rent because the house was in the family trust.  The sewer was backed up on a monthly basis.  The stairs were falling apart and creaked even when the dust fell on them. The hot water was on the right side of the faucet and the cold on the left, and the only source of heat was a wood burning stove.  So ask that question again and I’m almost positive that you know the answer as to how we were poor and managed to have a house.

I grew up in a small town with no stoplights.  The school contained the grades K-12. There was one grocery store that closed at nine, one gas station with a small taco restaurant attached, two small mom and pop restaurants and a population of a mere 700, on a good day.  This was a town where secrets didn’t stay secrets for long, tourists would pass through on their way to Chelan and not even notice that they had just gone through a town.

Most of my friends lived in the nice houses, with two cars, nice furniture and relatively new clothes at the beginning of the school year. Even my friends who lived in the “trailer park” known as Stony Brook, had at least one car and new clothes.  They had more than my sisters and I could have ever dreamed of possessing.

My mother was married at 18.  Not by choice really but due to the religion she grew up in.  By the time she was 23 she had three children, Denise, Lilly, and Rhonda.  My biological father was, how would you say this nicely, stingy with money and unbelievably controlling.  Later he became violent.  He would refuse to give my mother money to go to college, of which he had enough to spare, so she had to take out a student loan.  Being pregnant and in college wasn’t easy and the student loan soon went to paying for her food cravings and clothes for one year old Denise.  Fighting on a daily basis to survive with three children all under the age of six, my mother knew she had to “get out” for the sake of her children. After getting the divorce, we were left with nothing.  Craig, my father, took all the money, the car, the furniture and even the food.  She was left with the question.  “What now?”

The answer ended up being one that no mother wants to face, the food bank.  The food bank in the neighboring city of Wenatchee was owned and operated by my recently deceased great grandpa’s closest and dearest friend, Hank.  Hank was in his late 60’s at the time and was furious with the condition in which my father, so disrespectfully, left us.  The norm was to get two gallons of milk, three loaves of bread, a half brick of cheese, and some fruit and vegetables.  Since Hank was the owner and operator he could bend the rules.  To my mother he would give four gallons of milk, six loaves of bread, a whole brick of cheese, extra fruit and vegetables, three handfuls of candy (one for each girl) and an occasional ten dollars, to pay ten cents a meal for school lunches for her three growing children.  

This generosity was probably the only reason we made it.  I say this because, “What do you think milk is for, drinking?” is a phrase my sisters and I heard almost a million times.  Due to lack of money to buy more milk my mother couldn’t allow us to have a glass of milk to drink in the afternoon, only for breakfast.  I got in trouble one morning at school.  I should have been suspended for the rest of the day, for fighting with a 6^th grader (I was in 3^rd grade).  He was laughing at my family’s circumstances.  I overheard the teacher talking and they decide that they would not send me home for fear that I might not get to eat that day. 

Christmas time was not a time for presents. We normally made our own things to give to each other and we were fine with that.  “It’s the thought that counts”, was the motto we grew up with. One Christmas was different. Waking up early, we bounced on my mother’s bed singing “Wake up, wake up, it’s time to wake up in the morning!”  She arose and as was tradition, we all went to gather in the cold and dark living room dimly lit with the single light bulb on the ceiling.  Upon entering we found something that we never thought we’d see.  Two GIANT boxes of brand new, never been used before, children’s toys sat prominently in the middle of the dingy green carpet.  Toys for Tots had sent my mother two boxes of children’s toys.  We were like children in a candy store.  Talk about a happy Christmas.

As years passed, things started to get better financially. At the age of 8 I finally got to hold a shirt with the price tag still on it that was actually meant for me. This might not sound like something to get all giddy about, but I had never had a brand new, unworn piece of clothing before.  I wore hand-me-downs from my older sister who got them as hand-me-downs from our older cousin.

In the summer of 2000, my mom remarried to Ben and we started to live a better life. We were finally able to have a glass of milk to drink when we were thirsty.  We always had new clothes in our drawers and store bought food in our stomachs.  Eventually we moved out of that small town, over the mountain and to a town near Seattle where no one knew what we had come from. You can best believe, I sure wasn’t going to tell anybody!

I am now 17 and in college.  I’m happy that everything turned around for my family and me, but it’s not always that way for everyone. Some people are born poor and grow rich.  Some are rich and become poor.  Some are born poor and stay that way.  Please don’t ever think for one minute that white people aren’t poor.  Poverty isn’t racist.