There is this thing that happens to me so frequently it cannot be coincidence. There are many examples, but one of the earliest was a board presentation several years ago. I had declared my own little poverty informed movement within my sphere of influence, and I was surprised when it grew beyond my area. The idea of being poverty informed caught the attention of leadership where I worked, and I was asked to give a presentation to our District Board to make the case for poverty-informed work in our college as part of a larger equity plan. I am a good presenter (maybe really really good when it is personal like this), and my segment went quite well I thought. I made the case for basic needs support, creating a sense of welcome, and accelerating success. Nothing I proposed had more than a nominal cost, really there was no cost, just mindset work. When our team was done, there was a call for questions. One board member said he had a question about the poverty segment of the presentation. He then proceeded to say, "so if we dedicate resources to this group, will we be taking away from groups like... veterans?" I was caught off guard. I had not suggested any new resources go anywhere, but here I was being presented with a false choice between groups this person assumed excluded one another. I took a breath and answered that poverty reaches across many groups, including veterans unfortunately. My inquisitor was not very satisfied with that answer and when he pressed, I noted my proposals actually didn't require funding, at least not yet. At this point, my college president stepped in and stopped the conversation, and advocated for what I was proposing. I was grateful, but I have never forgotten.
This dynamic of wondering if building systems for those who have been left out or left behind takes away from others is ubiquitous and rooted in a toxic notion of "deservingness." Typically, it doesn't come up in the Facebook meme level of comparison from that board meeting, but it is always there. I get asked if we will forget about "high achieving" students if we focus "too much" on the "underserved." Even among people who ostensibly support the work I hear speeches that say "not only do we support the students with bumps and bruises, but the valedictorians as well..." Can you hear the bias? Can you hear the assumptions? Why are those groups exclusive? Who are you picturing when I talk about people in poverty? After years, I am sure it is not random, and it is not harmless. In fact, it is often people who consider themselves to be supportive and "good people" who express such sentiments. They often phrase it as "don't forget" about some other group, but at the end of the day the implication is if we try to help people in poverty, some other more deserving group will lose out. And it is not lost on me this is not just true of the poor, it is true of marginalized groups in general. People are very concerned about those who don't have resources getting too much, or more than they "deserve."
So, why does this happen over and over? I think it has to do with the inability to truly choose to identify with the marginalized population, to see yourself as the same. So many organizations and people want to talk about what they do "for" the poor, but I rarely hear them talk about what they do "with" the poor because they don't see themselves as the same. They still identify with groups who will lose out if the "other" gets too much or more than they deserve. This is all rooted in our consistent blame of individuals for their poverty. We need it to be their fault, for them to have done something wrong, or we must face the fact it could easily have been us given a small change in circumstance. If we start to identify as the same, we see the effect of whatever privilege we carry in the difference in outcomes, we see the systemic issues rather than personal failure. And when we see those we are working with as part of our group, we will work to help in powerful and personal ways. I know quoting Dr, King is almost a cliché these days, but I love the phrase "I choose to identify with the poor..." I love that he says it is a choice, because it is, and the choice changes everything.
There are lots of ways to describe this choice to identify. I prefer to steal from my friends at Amarillo College and talk about loving the students we have. In fact, an explicit choice to LOVE the students you have is one of the four tenets I teach in poverty-informed practice. Love in this case is a choice, and it takes courage to own it. I wrote a cover letter for a job this spring, and I described my work as "trying to change economic reality for people I love..." A trusted ally felt like I should change the language because the people doing the hiring might not be comfortable or understand. Perhaps he was right (I didn't get the job:)), but I did not change the wording, and I will not if I choose to seek work in the future. I choose to identify with the people I serve, so I choose to love them openly. Anything less comes with a risk of putting them in an "other" category, and it is far too easy to marginalize someone who is other. For those of you who have my Midwestern, Scandinavian background and just can't get yourself to talk about love at work, it is ok. My challenge to you is to identify with the marginalized, with the left out. It will change what you do whatever you call it.
Choosing to identify with those who have been left out is probably not a career fast track move. If you want to make your life easier, do the following. When the seemingly harmless questions making sure we don't exclude whoever is being used as the current strawman arise, act as if the objection is reasonable, and we need to not forget "anyone." You will be seen as reasonable, and perhaps even wise in a Solomonic way. You can likely ride your reasonableness to a solid career where you do quite a lot of good. You can "move the needle" with the "movable middle." But let me be very clear; when you choose to identify with the groups currently benefitting from the system, you will only reinforce a system we know doesn't work very well for the poor and many other groups who have been left out. This is not an accusation or manipulation; this is just true. As I said at the open, I see it over and over again in the most pernicious and insidious ways. It is almost always someone reasonable reminding me in soft language they don't want to exclude the "top students" by focusing too much on the students who have my attention. Well, I choose to identify with the poor, and I will continue to remind these reasonable people, it is their assumption one group does not cross over with the other. I will remind them the future of our colleges and our communities is in bringing success to those who have been excluded. And I truly believe choosing to identify with the poor, with the underprivileged, is the path to success for students, colleges, and our communities.
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