Barbara Ehrenreich points out that we have an “entire shame industry” set up to make you feel bad about losing your job, buying that house, or sleeping with that guy. One need only read the comments in one of Poverty in America’s most notorious posts on the foreclosure crisis to see not only a resounding lack of empathy, but also outright hostility towards former homeowners presumed to have made bad choices that we would obviously never make. Or this post that I wrote after only one month at Change.org: an attempt to shame the shamers who blamed undocumented workers for our economic exploitation.
As food stamp use grows, the stigma associated with their use is allegedly falling. As we continue to see widespread unemployment, foreclosures, and reliance on private and public assistance well into 2010, we must stick to the messaging that we are all in this together, that we have nothing to be ashamed of, and that we can only reshape and recapture the “American Dream” by reforming the political and economic causes that got us to this moment. Of course, without action, this is just a lot of empty rhetoric.
As posted at Poverty in America | Change.org. (via Jason’s tumblr)
