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[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I'm with you. Although, I will say this: Poor people (and most of my experience with poor people revolves around poor people of color) give shit up to other poor people all the time. The attitudes I see in poor neighborhoods do not exist in wealthy ones. Wealthy neighborhoods are designed to not only keep people out, but to isolate families with fences and huge lots and private clubs, within. I know plenty of poor people and they look out for each other. I know plenty of well-off people and sure, they give to charities, but if the family down the street is struggling it's just a shame.

I'm sure you've seen those videos where a guy, dressed normally, goes out and asks people if he can have some of their food because he's hungry and gets rejected by people with money again and again, but asks a homeless man if he can have some of his pizza because he is really hungry and is immediately given a share. Or the video of the homeless man who is handed a winning lottery ticket (for like a few hundred bucks) who wants to share it with the guy who set it up as an experiment. Whether it's something like that or the study that showed that it's the older, poor, black women who are x-times more likely to give up their seat to a pregnant woman on public transportation, there's just a different attitude that comes from having nothing and not believing you deserve a ton of shit.

I think it's easy to say that we focus on our families because it's the acceptable way of saying, I don't give a fuck about other people. But, like you said, we really should recognize that that's what we're saying. If your attitude is, "I want to give my child every advantage in life," okay. But no one should pretend that there isn't a flip side to that coin.

TM

This is a good and interesting post.