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Ibrahim Faizi
Monique Williams
English 1A
22 December 2013
The proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is simple, yet really powerful. It is used to bring two groups together to stop a common adversary. We, the struggling middle class of America, aren’t putting this knowledge to use in dealing with the problems we have with the rich. We need to be working with the poor instead of pushing them away with false labels. The book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, shares the stories of poor people’s struggles throughout the country. It shows how they are looked down on and sometimes even ignored. Placing stereotypes on those who are struggling with poverty results in the division of everyone at the bottom which is exactly what the wealthy want us to do. By distancing ourselves from people in poverty, we are driving our own selves into poverty and out of being financially successful in America.
By making stereotypes about poor people, the shrinking middle class is mistakenly breaking away from the commonalities it has with the poor. “Like a man with a knife in his back…, the poor have been stabbed with the blade of indifference. With a profusion of affirmation we acknowledge the pain and rush to stop the bleeding. Affirmation…compels us to action”(pg. 72). We walk around not caring about poor people and at the same time condemning them, thinking we are getting away from poverty itself. In reality putting down the poor doesn’t get us any closer to the rich, it only
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sets the bar of poverty lower. We need to realize that we aren’t so different from the poor. Both of us are struggling in an unfair world created by the rich. We are all in debt and can’t provide enough for not only future generations, but also our immediate family. The implanted stereotypes we use on the poor make us feel like we aren’t going to fall into poverty, but that is couldn’t be more false.
Stereotypes like poor people are lazy, on drugs, and taking advantage of us are created by the 1% and placed in our thoughts to prevent us from working with the poor in changing this nation for the better. “Who could forget the President’s stump speeches…of the so-called Chicago welfare queen? Journalists tried-in vain-to find the Cadillac-driving welfare cheat Reagan described who used more than 80 aliases, false addresses, and names of nonexistent or dead husbands to steal $180,000 in government aid”(pg. 77). While president, Ronald Reagan would constantly tell make believe stories like this to defend cuts in programs that aimed in helping the poor. The rich implanted these stereotypes to make us believe that the poor are our enemies. In reality the top 1% are just using this as a distraction, while they get more and more money. To this day, they are still antagonizing the poor so we can pass their hidden agendas, which only benefit them. They are enjoyingly watching both lower classes struggle and fight with each other. Poverty stereotypes are preventing us from seeing that the true enemy is in fact the wealthy of this nation.
The ending of poverty stereotypes can be achieved if workshop-like events are held that allow people from different financial backgrounds to interact with each other
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and find solutions on how to improve living conditions. “If Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, or any other clueless politician who demeans poor folk had joined us during the Prairie Opportunity gathering, they might have garnered a better understanding of what so called poor people really want”(pg. 83). One of the main things holding us back from working with the poor is that we don’t realize how close we are to them. Life is full of struggles that we constantly go through and chances are a lot of people around us, including the people in poverty, have already gone through these same struggles. By giving the poor an outlet and hearing what they have to say we can finally understand who they really are and what they want. These events can be that outlet for not just them, but also all of us struggling in the middle too.
Stereotypes against the poor are preventing us, Americans in the middle class, from realizing that we are in the same boat as people in poverty. That is why it’s essential for poor and middle class Americans to put aside the negative thoughts, created by the rich, about each other and work together to break the tight grip the 1% have on this nation’s wealth. The work Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, the authors of The Rich and the Rest of Us, did in getting the poor noticed is only the first, yet a significant step towards finally creating a fair and just nation for all people in the US. It is now the job of us, the poor and middle class, to take control of this country.
Work Cited:
Smiley, Tavis and Cornel West. The Rich and the Rest of Us. New York: SmileyBooks, 2012. Print.
