Monday, December 02, 2013

Understanding the decisions "poor people" make--or, moving into another's world

Want to "get inside" the mind, soul and life of a chronically low-income person?  Here's how her story/essay aims to help us understand that which can only be truly understood from her position:

There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.

To read more click here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A case study in rarionalization.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting and helpful article - not from and expert or policy wonk, but a real, live person. Sad. Can't say I know I would do better if it was me.

Anonymous said...

This story has been exposed to be totally made up.

Anonymous said...

It is far from "totally made up." She eventually got some help from her parents and, after the post, received a significant sum in donations. But, as she has explained:

” You have to understand that the piece you read was taken out of context, that I never meant to say that all of these things were happening to me right now, or that I was still quite so abject. I am not. I am reasonably normally lower working class.”
-”I am exhausted and poor and can’t make all my bills all the time. ... I can always make the amount of money I need in a month, it’s just that it doesn’t always match the billing cycles.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/381652-is-linda-tirado-killermartinis-author-of-viral-poverty-thoughts-essay-really-poor/

Anyone who has ever spent any time with people who cannot make ends meet will recognize the truth of this description of what that life is like.

Anonymous said...

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/artattack/2013/11/that_viral_poverty_thoughts_es.php