I always like the custodians. I have worked in multiple school districts, and at multiple colleges, in my careers in athletics and education, and without fail, I liked the people who took care of the buildings. It's interesting, because I am not mechanically inclined in any way, but we always have a good relationship. I have been thinking about this lately and wondering if it has any connection to my background or interest in poverty. It might but... Fortunately, most of the places I have worked paid the physical plant pretty well, so they weren't in poverty, but they were probably on the lower end of the wage scale, and not everyone was always respectful or valued their work, or at least it seemed that way to me. So, maybe I felt like they were misunderstood or underdogs, or something. I am not exactly sure, but my relationships with them always seem to be pretty positive, well beyond the cliché of "be nice to the janitors and secretaries" I was told 25 years ago. So, I started thinking, maybe it was more about me perhaps?
Another quirk of my career, and my approach to it, is who I have chosen to be important to as I've worked my way through my career path. I worry a lot about my credibility, but that tends to flow in one direction. I have always wanted the students in poverty I work with to see me as genuine and relatable. In other words, it is very important to me they see me as credible. Maybe you are thinking that is not unusual, but I think it is, because it contrasts with my lack of interest in making sure people "above" me view me as credible. When it comes to those relationships, I generally want my work to speak for itself, and in fact people who care about me have said I really should do more to manage those relationships. In hindsight, it has probably been a bit of a career limiter, but I don't seem capable of changing it. If I can take a shot at summarizing it; if you are someone I consider in a more vulnerable position than me, I will go out of my way to make sure you get what you need, but if I perceive you as being in a position of power I have a much harder time doing the same thing. It is about who I identify with, and I struggle to identify with people in positions of power, particularly if we don't have a relationship to draw from. In simple language, I am not inclined to default to trusting you. This manifests in a number of ways, but the one which has my attention lately is recognizing the fact that even as I have increased access to powerful people, I will always gravitate to the least powerful person in the room. As I type it, it seems a little self-destructive, but if I'm honest, it's one of my favorite things about myself, odd as that is to say.
So, other than my own psychoanalysis, what does this have to do with Poverty Informed Practice? I suspect quite a bit, especially if my experience is common. What is often described back to me as a "chip on my shoulder" is likely rooted in the relational nature of living in poverty as well as the judgment leveled on those who struggle. In that frame, it makes sense those of us who have found stability after struggling would be inclined to try to give it to others. It also makes sense to distrust those in power because you are used to feeling judged by them, especially if they don't share your background. So, when one of us (me and my people) enters your college, our behavior may not look like you expect. I so often hear about someone receiving help and not expressing enough gratitude. Well, how does that look different if you grew up in a world where if you could help, you were simply expected to? It reminds me of a practice I've seen for years that never sat right with me. I've spent a fair amount of time around philanthropy, and we so often require, or at least expect, recipients to write thank you cards, attend banquets with donors, or give testimonials on how a donation changed their lives. Let's think more deeply about what that might do...
Expressing gratitude seems innocuous to most I am guessing, but what does it feel like when you have been feeling an unfair power dynamic your whole life? Would you possibly have some distrust of those in authority and feel like you are supposed to thank them for things others seem to get so easily? Follow the logic and you start to see the mismatch between organizations built on middle class norms and people who come from different backgrounds. My lens is always social class and poverty because of my own background, but I am guessing this applies to anyone who feels on the losing side of a power dynamic. In these scenarios you may have to work harder to give a sense of belonging to people who have received lifelong reminders they don't really belong. How might you feel if you were told implicitly and explicitly receiving support was dependent on expressing enough thanks for receiving it. I don't know about you, but it isn't hard for me to see choosing to behave in a "self-destructive" way in order to maintain your personal integrity. As I tell friends all the time, I am exactly the same person I was when I had nothing, my intelligence and worth have not changed, just my circumstances. So maybe don't be surprised when you meet initial resistance.
"If someone rejects your support, it is because they are wounded. Try again." I heard Dr. Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade say this at the recent HLC Conference and it resonated...deeply. As Poverty Informed practitioners, we need to realize the wounds from living in the war zone of poverty. These wounds and scars make a difference. It is not enough to just open our doors to people and expect them to behave in the ways we understand. At least it is not enough if we are serious about creating a place where people feel wanted, not just welcome. Poverty is a context and our learning, and our reactions are contextual. If I can be 51, successful by most standards, and still struggle to identify with those is power, how do we imagine the student coming to your door for the first time feels? Our norms around philanthropy are one example, but I encourage you to use it as a doorway to find other assumptions you make that do not generate the reaction you hoped for. If you work to see things from the context of the person in or from poverty, maybe at the least you will try again.