Yesterday on my way to the commuter train I was accosted by a gentleman dressed in unworn sneakers, jeans and Mountain Equipment Co-Op rain jacket. He was clean-shaven and didn’t smell. He was towing an airline carry-on bag, again without any visible sign of wear and tear.
“Do you have any change you could spare?” he asked. I could hardly suppress the look of contempt on my face as I turned my back on him.
This is probably not a good Christian attitude toward the poor. But I happened to spend the first seventeen years of my life in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, in West Africa. So from what I saw — but thankfully didn’t experience — I don’t think there are any poor people in all of North America.
I’ll explain further by stealing from John Scalzi’s famous blog post, which has always left me strangely unmoved:
Being poor is not knowing what anything costs — because you get everything you have from the local dump.
Being poor is when your kids are chased away from the sidewalk in front of the TV store and beaten.
Being poor is walking 10 miles a day to work, never even having been in a car.
Being poor is almost welcoming toothaches in your three remaining teeth, because they distract from the hunger pangs.
Being poor is when the local dump is your and all the neighbors’ kids’ playground. There is only room in your house to sleep.
Being poor is envying the threadbare school uniforms on the students you see, because you’ll never have a shirt without holes in it, much less ever go to school.
Being poor is living in the outskirts of the city dump.
Being poor is hiding the half a burger you found in the trash from your children so you have something to eat before work tomorrow.
Being poor is when you are the only one of eight siblings that made it past two years old.
Being poor is toys made from wire and bits of string.
Being poor is a house made of cardboard and plastic bags.
Being poor is knowing that having $5 would put your life in danger.
Being poor is when your undernourished kids never have a growth spurt.
Being poor is not having time to make a fire to cook the gristle you found in the trash, and bolting it raw.
Being poor is more holes than underwear, which has never been washed, anyway.
Being poor is everyone having to sleep with their knees drawn up, so the feral dogs in the dump don’t knaw on limbs that stick out of the house.
Being poor is when you step on a nail in the playground, and don’t feel a thing because it didn’t puncture your half-inch of callus.
Being poor is wondering where those groups of kids all dressed alike are going every morning.
Being poor is thinking $0.25 a day is a really good deal.
Being poor is knowing that you can rely on no one at all.
Being poor is a 16-hour day breaking rocks in 45-degrees celsius. The malaria makes you feel cold, anyway.
Being poor is not knowing or caring who your dad was.
Being poor is drinking from the open sewer.
Being poor is dodging strangers’ cars to scavenge their leftover orange peels.
Being poor is thinking yourself lucky to catch a couple of cockroaches for lunch.
Being poor is when grade 3 is the highest form of education you’ve ever heard about.
Being poor is being chased off the sidewalk and beaten. There are no malls in your country.
Being poor is sending your children out alone to beg and steal while you walk 5 miles to work.
Being poor is the police randomly knocking down your house and beating you and your family.
Being poor is when your only mode of interaction with people wearing clothes without holes is begging.
Being poor is hoping someone will throw you the end of their sandwich.
Being poor is a sidewalk with no broken brown glass on it, because you’ve carefully gathered it up to use as kitchen utensils.
Being poor is people knowing everything they will ever need to know about you from one glance.
Being poor is never even dreaming of a $0.01 raise.
Being poor is burning old schoolbooks for food or warmth without ever having a concept of what they are.
Being poor is when the sun and rain are your only source of light and water.
Being poor is scraping the rancid pasta you found in the dump off the ground and devouring it.
Being poor is knowing you can never work very hard, because you’ve malnourished and have chronic malaria and a host of deficiency diseases.
Being poor is never having any possibility of ever using any of whatever intelligence hasn’t been drowned by the malnutrition and malaria.
Being poor is when no one would ever think of the poor as lazy — there’s no such thing as welfare in your country.
Being poor is a six-hour vigil with your child in your lap as she dies of measles.
Being poor is never buying anything, ever, in your life.
Being poor is eating the leftover ramen you found in the dump.
Being poor is when you don’t know not having a family at 14 years old is possible.
Being poor is when you’ve never had an opportunity to be grateful in your life.
Being poor is knowing you won’t be judged, because no one can escape his fate.
Being poor is stealing the single crayon in some lucky kid’s sponsor package.
Being poor is being afraid to pick up coins, lest you be beaten or killed for them.
Being poor is when “shacking up” means something quite literal.
Being poor is never knowing what the numbers on discarded Lotto tickets are meant to represent.
Being poor is being chased from in front of the grocery store and beaten.
Being poor is when the only kinds of “mistakes” your children could possibly make are things that would get them immediately killed.
Being poor is a fever, cough, broken ankle, suppurating ulcer, intestinal parasites and skin fungus that last your whole life long.
Being poor is breaking up the couch you find in the dump for firewood.
Being poor is a $2.00 paycheck advance from a company that takes $2.50 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is a lifetime of shivering with malaria and fighting feral dogs when they get too close to your cardboard house at night.
Being poor is a plastic bag for a bed.
Being poor is when there are no shelters in your country.
Being poor is knowing that your poverty is the will of God.
Being poor is never imagining it would be possible to not be poor.
Being poor is not knowing an option if it bit you on the ass.
Being poor is never imagining it would be possible to run, let along get anywhere by doing so.
Being poor is people never troubling themselves with the fact of your existence.