by Ethan Johnson
December 18, 2006

Debra J Dickerson has a featured article in today's edition of Salon regarding the poor family that moved in next door to what otherwise sounds like Wysteria Lane. The following is a sample paragraph as to the nature and character of her article:

They had no tools, no salt for the sidewalks, no batteries for the broken toys that littered their yard and which the kids hopefully offered in exchange for the use of mine's Toys "R" Us bonanza. When the child I sent home to be bandaged (they played so roughly) came back still bleeding and undisinfected, I left a Megalo-Mart, industrial-size box of bandages and a four-pack of Neosporin on the broken porch chair I used as the drop site for my donations. The next few days, I watched the Smith kids run about festooned head to toe in Winnie the Pooh steri-strips. The next time "Mama said we need Band-Aids" I said I was all out.

After several incidents similar to the above, the family is evicted:

Soon afterward, they were evicted, and left behind a house so filthy and battered, it has taken contractors four months to repair the damage. They left the door hanging open and when I stepped in to close it, the stench nearly made my knees buckle. Junk was everywhere. The basement was flooded, food was stuck to the floor and walls, every kitchen surface was scorched and blackened. Mouse droppings made a carpet. As well, they'd vandalized my backyard and garage and keyed the entire driver's side, the side nearest them, of my car. Windows, mirrors and finish.

I have seen and experienced similar situations, and what strikes me about this particular article is the sheer amount of passivity, and then resentment that the poor family didn't thrive after receiving whatever bounteous gifts from the author. It's like giving a poor person a million dollars, no strings attached, and then complaining that they pissed it all away inside of a weekend. On crap. While I am not unsympathetic to the feelings of hurt and resentment, I don't see the author as being an integral part of the solution either.

Thinking back to my own long list of stupid screw-ups, I noted that the ones that I overcame usually came by way of a) someone pointing out what was wrong, b) offering a solution to the problem, c) teaching me what to do for next time, and d) offering feedback concerning my improvement. Passively commenting that my necktie-tying skills suck doesn't help me dress myself. Calling me an idiot doesn't help me overcome whatever obstacle either. And buying me a box of silk ties still doesn't help me tie a windsor knot if I lack that know-how.

Small wonder, then, that the author of the Salon piece grouses about the lack of constructive (or conservative) use of whatever handouts by the "problem" family. In a vacuum, any given item can be misused, neglected, or abused. The characterization of events as told by the author suggests that she assumed that the mother would intrinsically know what to do with a crate-load of [whatever]. In fact, much of the blame for what went on is laid at the mother's feet, rightly or wrongly. But the mother never seems to be actively engaged by anyone. Not by the author, not by the other neighbors, and not by the myriad of social services that came through for one reason or another. I'm left wondering, if the neighbors were indeed so horrible, why a) none of the social services workers reported anything to anyone, b) if the author's property was vandalized, why none of it was reported to the police/insurance company, and c) assuming the poor family was "placed" in the home next to the author, why the placement entity didn't offer any sort of, shall we say "life skills" counseling to the mother.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the sense of "don't get involved" that pervades a neighborhood when someone seems to be beyond all hope. I once lived in a townhouse (there were 8 to a strip) where one of the tenants at the opposite end of our strip used to "garbage pick" and bring all sorts of crap home. Everyone knew he did it, because he made no effort to conceal his hoarding. Everyone collectively chose to ignore him (myself included), or rationalize his behavior, or their own passivity. One day, he was gone, and a team of people wearing hazmat suits had to come gut his townhouse. It took days to gut it, and untold days/weeks to return the unit to a liveable (and saleable) state. Something could have been done sooner, and wasn't.

Thus, the problems embodied by the now-evicted family in the Salon article persist. The mother still isn't raising her children effectively (put mildly), the children are still walking train wrecks, and yes, someone is going to have their own bouts of resentment and isolationism after trying to help this family in some small way.

The author may bristle at this, but I got a strong sense of class division from her article. In short, what I mean is, the author seems to be saying that the suburbs are for people of a certain income and skill set, the wealthier suburbs more so, and so forth. I believe this disparity was explored in detail throughout the course of a popular social experiment called The Beverly Hillbillies. Perhaps I am dead wrong, but I suspect that the real crime of the poor family next door wasn't their transgressions, ignorance, and excesses, but doing all of these things "above their station." Wanna live like an animal? Do it in the ghetto, not Highland Park. Wanna live a classy lifestyle? Do it in Highland Park, not the ghetto.

I hope that this dialogue turns more people to the subject of engagement: How committed they are to it, why passive solutions are more passive than solutions, and what role "class" plays into not only our personal outlook on the world, but how we interact with it (or not).

I'll close with the author's own damning words:

Most of the Katrina evacuees who remain displaced are the hardcore, long-term, helpless poor, like the Smiths, and God only knows what will become of them when our patience wanes. However many begrudged millions we pour into the welfare system, the fact is that we abandoned these folks at birth and they know it.

"Helpless" reads as "without help". The author didn't give help, just band-aids, real or metaphorical. It's easy to blame "the system" for the failings of the poor, but I offer that the "system" is, at root, people.

I'll have more thoughts in this vein in a future article. <EM>