The Difference between Poverty and Laziness

So in looking at statuses and notes written on Facebook, as well as several blogs here, I have come across an interesting sentiment.

Many people seem to think that rich people work hard and poor people don't.

Many people think that Obama will take away their hard-earned money and give it to "lazy poor people."

In my experience, I have seen a remarkable difference in being "poor" and being "lazy."

I offer you my perspective.

As most of you know, I spent three months in the summer of 2007 working in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx. This area flip-flops back and forth with another (in LA, I believe) over which is the poorest district in America.

A few stops down the green line, around 59th street, is the 7th richest district in America.

I am familiar with both.

In Mott Haven, I met the nicest most earnest people I have ever encountered in my life. People working hard to make ends meet and provide for their children despite the violence and poor health conditions.

(I myself witnessed a shooting and a police raid in just my few short months there.)

They are not lazy.

They are held down by a system that does them no favors.

A lack of proper education funding keeps their children--my children--from receiving adequate attention in school, which in turn keeps them from being able to get into the best high schools. A lack of after-school programs keeps them from having a safe environment to complete their homework and leaves them with nowhere else to go but the streets where they have nothing to do but get in trouble.

College is out of the question, as many of them never have the chance to finish high school.

Imagine a world where your middle school graduation is the one where you have a party thrown in your honor and you are given gifts. Imagine a world with an 8th grade trip instead of a senior trip.

That world is the South Bronx.

I have seen the most brilliant children just give up because they lose hope.

I have seen families on welfare because they have no other choice if they want to live.

I love those people . . . and I'm crying as I type this.

This is poverty.

Now let me paint you a different picture.

Imagine a world all about Number One. A world of rich, selfish individuals who do nothing but buy, buy, buy without so much as a second thought about the word "give."

A world of people who refuse to give "my money" to help someone who needs it. Who see the problem, but refuse to acknowledge that maybe--just maybe--it affects them, too, and they have a responsibility to help their fellow man.

A world of people who use the word "lazy" because it is easier--and more comfortable--to say than "underprivileged" or "held down."

Imagine people who come home from their stable jobs to sit in their tidy suburban homes with three cars, 2.5 children, and a dog. People who grew up in a safe neighborhood with a good school district. People who are given money to go to college.

Imagine people who get all those breaks in life only to go to college and waste themselves away on drugs or alcohol.

Or people who inherit millions of dollars only to embarrass themselves in front of millions of people.

Those people are lazy.

Your comfortable, clean, black-and-white world exists.

But so does the Bronx.

And I have seen both.

So please, step back and think before you start whining and throwing around the word "lazy."

Allow yourself to think that maybe--just maybe--there are people in America who don't have it as well as you through no fault of their own.

I believe the way I do because, to me, poverty has a face and a name.

I pray that someday you will be able to see the world through my eyes.

Maybe then you will be able to recognize laziness.