Why It’s Wrong to Treat Poor People Like Shit
“The poor disgust us because they are us, shorn of our illusions. They show us what we’d look like without our fine clothes. How’d we smell without perfume.” - High Sparrow from Game of Thrones
Recently, I’ve found myself in dire need of a helping hand. Two years ago, the last time I needed this much help, I was called a moocher, con-artist, a liar, and a thief. All because I was asking for help for both my parents and ourselves to secure a house for them and all of us to move out of a travel trailer because the bank did a shady deal, took my parents down payment, and came up with a $1,000 more required to secure the house and within a little less than a month.
Spoilers, the money went to the house, and I’ve lived in that house for two years now. Before that, about a year and a half before the house issue, I desperately needed an AC in my vehicle that my parents got me because the bank repossessed my other car. I offered services in exchange, and everyone who cashed in on them received said services. Except one.
The person that started this entire fiasco and blackballed me from everyone I ever met in Arkansas said one tiny little lie that triggered EVERYONE to call me a con-artist, moocher, liar, and a thief. That lie was I never delivered on my promise. I contacted this person when they contributed and told them how to contact me to cash in on their rewards.
The fact that they never contacted me, makes their statement true, because how can I deliver when they never contacted me to tell me what they want delivered? It’s a true statement, but rigged 100% against me. If you want to buy something online and you don’t give your address and you write a bad review that it never came, whose fault is that?
So now, fast forward to 2016, I’m losing my roof over my head, I’ve struggled with losing everything I ever owned to a vindictive mother-in-law refusing us access to our things and lying to the judge that she threw it all away. I also live currently in the MIDDLE of nowhere and I have applied to every single job I could ever do in a 40 mile radius, to no avail. And this stupid wretched vile lie has had my GoFundMe post deleted in groups, me kicked out of groups seeking help, and I’d be fortunate to join a local group without being treated like complete shit because of that one lie.
You know what the worst part of all this is? The very same people who claim they are empathetic, compassionate, and Secular Humanists, are the very same people parroting this lie because they didn’t even bother to look at the truth, or even ask me what happened.
Today, I have a car with no heat, no AC, 4 bald tires and on its last leg. I can’t secure a major contract to save my life. I am being evicted from a house that is 70 miles away from civilization. Our stove is a plug in electric counter top stove. 7 months ago we upgraded from a small camper fridge to a real fridge/freezer combo. We have no washer and dryer.
NONE of that is the life of a con-artist. That is the life of completely poverty stricken struggles. If you think for one second I’m content with all of this, or think I did this to myself, you would only be 1/4th right. Why? Because my wife and I chose to leave a hostile environment. We are only content with it, because it’s all we have. If we didn’t become content with it, we would drive ourselves insane.
Of course we want a decent life. Of course I’m willing to work hard for it. We NEED a chance to be able to do that. We aren’t asking for a handout. We are asking for a helping hand. We aren’t asking for a million dollars. We are asking for $600 in help, and a few hundred to fix up a broken down travel trailer to live out of as we move closer to civilization to GET said chance.
The alternative? We get to live out of our car.
So the moral of the story? Don’t call people living in poverty hell a con-artist. Don’t treat poor people like shit, because you could be me in my situation.
