Manipulation!
I have been doing Bridges Out of Poverty trainings for
several years now both locally in my hometown of Dubuque and more recently as
an ahaProcess consultant in various locations around the country. Typically, these trainings are for
predominantly middle class audiences.
And there are patterns of questions which I have come to recognize as
“middle class questions.” One of the
common ones has to do with abusing or manipulating the system. The training audience is typically made up
of sensitive people who are often directly serving people in poverty. So, the questioner often tries to be gentle
about how he or she phrases the question.
But in the end, it comes down to some form of “What do we do about
people who manipulate the system?” Here
are some I have heard.
- “What about parents who go to a lot of different agencies at Christmas time and get so many presents for their kids?”
- “What about people who lie just to get the benefits and then don’t follow through?”
- “When we give people money to help them pay their phone bill, how can we keep them from using it to buy ringback tones?”
First, I understand and have sympathy for these
questions. It is frustrating to
encounter people who seem to be out to cheat the system, especially when the
system they are cheating is yours! The problem I have with these questions, is
that they often reflect assumptions about people in poverty and in fact, about middle
class systems and people as well. Let me
name a couple of those assumptions and then develop the point:
- · Many people in poverty have a moral flaw that significantly contributes to their own problems and the greater problems of the community.
- People who abuse the system are doing something that I would not do if I were in the same situation.
- · Manipulation/cheating/abuse of the system is primarily a poverty problem.
The first two go together.
If the hidden rules concepts are valid (unspoken cues and behaviors that
are known to those who belong to a group but not necessarily to those outside
the group), people will use whatever skills they have to get whatever they can
out of systems whose hidden rules are foreign to them. Parents in poverty want to give their kids as
much as they can. If that means going to
a few different agencies and loading up at Christmas time on what is available,
it seems like that could also be interpreted as parents doing everything they
can for their kids. Middle class
families are well known for overindulging their kids at Christmas; buying kids too many gifts and often gifts
that are neither needed or even good for them.
Is it more moral because middle class families waste - I’m sorry,
“spend” money to provide their kids with too much Christmas? That’s at least a question worth
considering. But regardless, it seems
that the initial motivation of “I want to do whatever I can for my kids” is the
same.
Then there is the whole problem of moral judgment and
superiority. Are we middle class folks
so sure of our moral fiber that we are confident that we would not do the same
thing if we were in the same situation?
What skills would I need to develop if I found myself living in
poverty? What skills to feed my
kids? Pay my rent? Get gas money to drive to work? Have a Merry Christmas? Would I be willing to bend the rules a
bit? Would I be willing to stretch the
truth a bit? Would I HAVE to do some of
these things? These are interesting
questions that I honestly hope I do not have to face. Just asking them forces me to confront my
unspoken assumptions about people who live differently than I do as well
assumptions about the reasons for behaviors I don’t easily understand.
But the bigger issue for me is the idea that manipulation of
systems (or cheating or abusing) is somehow unique to poverty. This assumption leads to a tendency to
suspect everyone in poverty. In working
with many Getting Ahead (www.gettingaheadnetwork.com) groups through the years,
I have heard consistent reports of the treatment people in poverty can expect
from systems that are supposedly to designed to serve them. The
general feeling is that of a lack of trust on the part of the systems toward
those they are serving. The consistent
questions I get from middle class audiences at trainings as well as in general
conversations confirm the impression of people in poverty toward systems. However,
I can say with confidence that I rarely encounter a system of any kind where I
feel a sense of mistrust from the people serving me. (Obviously, this issue crosses many more
lines than economic class. As a white,
middle aged, middle class man I am afforded some level of trust based on
multiple characteristics. This
discussion is intended to focus on economic class.)
The problem is that it is far too easy to see and question
the manipulation of others who are different while staying blind to our own
manipulations. There are certainly
people in poverty who manipulate and abuse the system. I don’t think so many that the system should
assume a person in poverty is guilty until proven innocent. But aren’t there also people in middle class
who manipulate the system? In school, we
called them “brown-nosers”. But there
are also those who manipulate the system when paying their taxes. There are some who deduct everything as a
“business expense” for example. There
are others who manipulate the system to obtain promotions. Who abuse the company expense accounts. What about those in wealth? Isn’t all
the anger towards the 1% at least partly about wealthy people and wealthy systems
that manipulate the economic system to their own advantage?
This brings me to a favorite bible verse that I have gone to
many times to remind me that my judgment of others is always based on shaky
grounds. In the book of Romans in the
New Testament, after speaking against a variety of folks who are violating
God’s ways, Paul makes this statement in Chapter 2:1 “You, therefore, have no
excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you
judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do
the same things.”
There is no new sin in the world, only the form in which it
appears. When it comes to the judgment
of those in poverty by those from middle class and wealth, the stereotypical
“welfare mom” who is manipulating the system is an easy target that insulates those
who judge from seeing the manipulations of their own systems and even their own
lives. Far too often, we “who pass
judgment condemn (ourselves)” because we
”do the same things.”
In case anyone is questioning, I am not advocating for
manipulation of systems for the sake of personal gain. While I believe it is universal across human
experience regardless of class, I am not saying that it is okay and should be
accepted as appropriate. But if manipulation of systems for personal
gain is a problem, it is a human one, not one exclusive to poverty. The whole community’s ability to view it
through that lens will make the conversations more honest and useful and the
solutions easier to discover for individuals and systems at every economic
class level.
Great questions!
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