Thanks to Mary M for sending this along: So why do poor people seem so self destructive. Well, “Our bodies hurt, our brains hurt, and our souls hurt.” Poor people are exhausted, degraded, angry and depressed most days of their hopeless lives notes reviewer Alexander Gilmore. So just how should we view and try to help the poor. There should be a lively discussion about Hillbilly Elegy next Monday the 20th of May in the Sky Club Lounge.
From the NYT: “The factory manager of the Landmark Plastic Company in Akron, Ohio, once told me that he was so concerned about high turnover among workers that he began holding exit interviews to find out why they were leaving. The answers surprised him. It wasn’t the meager pay, the noise, the mind-numbing assembly lines or the mist of plastic dust in the air. Instead, most employees complained “that they didn’t feel needed, necessary or wanted,” the manager reported, and were treated like “just another body.”
Linda Tirado will not be amazed to read this little anecdote, because the craving for personal dignity is a force that drives her caustic commentary, “Hand to Mouth.” In the low-wage jobs where she has worked, bosses don’t ask subordinates what they think. Humiliation is the rule. “Poor people” are dehumanized by “rich people” wielding contempt and hypocritical moral judgments across a stark divide. The society she portrays is bipolar, with practically nobody between wealth and destitution.