60 minutes ran this great story about the SEED school, “a boarding school for the poor,” located in Washington D.C. Here is what grabbed my attention:
“Kids learn social skills like self-discipline and etiquette.”
I believe poor kids overflow with self-discipline. Their circumstances force them to. I also believe that poor kids have etiquette. Only theirs is a different kind from the etiquette practiced at debutante balls. So what this piece should have said is that poor kids are learning the self-discipline and etiquette as defined by the rich. But that’s not my point.
My point is that self-discipline and etiquette are perfect examples of the cultural barriers that prevent the poor from pulling themselves out of poverty. Take this clip from The Wire
When the dessert cart comes around, D’Angelo reaches for the cake his girlfriend requested. “Oh no sir,” the waiter condescendingly says, “sorry that’s the sample.” D’Angelo is embarrassed, though he shouldn’t be. He didn’t grow up going to restaurants, fancy or otherwise. But there is an expectation that he should; he should because regardless of where he’s from he’s in that world now. Except he’s not, which he points out by saying, “hard as you try, you still can’t go no where.”
Development “experts” teach the poor how to write business plans, irrigate farms and develop distribution and supply chains. But what good are any of these efforts if we in the West turn around and ostracize the poor for the way they order at restaurants?
Dignity is a term bandied about in development circles. For us it means launching a business or creating a job rather than accepting a handout. What does dignity mean for the poor? Does it have anything to do with being accepted rather than constantly being subject to improvement?
Western development intensions are noble. I just wonder if our expectations exacerbate rather than alleviate poverty. It’s something Nicholas Kristof has been thinking about too. And that, as Bill Easterly has made clear, is a whole other discussion.
2 Comments
Hey Elmira,
Thanks for commenting at ex-pat! I so agree with what you are saying here. Give people the resources but then be brave enough to set them free to follow their own path to success. No such thing as “You’re Doing It Wrong.” Just another way to lord it over others.
Acceptance. Ironically, that’s what most people want. Yet, that’s what most people cannot find anywhere. We all want to “tamper” with each other. The rich look down on each other. Just another cage.
Maybe the poor should teach the rich how to let people be.
Great food for thought. Love the wire clip!
Thx. Giulietta
Love what you have to say here, Elmira and Giulietta. Having just returned to Turkey after 6 months in the ‘rich’ West, I’ve again been in the company of some of the richest yet most miserably unhappy people, whose only ‘joy’ seems to come from the fact they can snap their fingers and make others jump to their whims 24/7. And the poorest I know shake their heads at that behaviour and go home to tend to those connections more important than money – family, community and self-respect for hard work . There is dignity in that. Dignity does not come from what you own, where you dine or what you drive.
Letting the rich define what’s important is exactly why the West is such a mess these days.