I was going to write about Michelle Obama. I was going to write about how Michelle Obama will soon be an iconic first lady – the first I can think of to perfectly combine education, motherhood, femininity and independence. I was going to write about the shadow that has often been cast on first ladies, the need to be prim and proper, the desire to be loving and quiet and the lifting of that shadow that it appears Mrs. Obama will soon do.
And while Michelle has taken a huge step forward for women of all races inside and outside of the White House, for many, there are more pressing matters at hand. Over the last few centuries, women’s rights and racial civil rights have been at the forefront of advocacy. And with hard work and true courage, both were, and continue to be, very successful movements – movements that cannot be abandoned for there is still work to be done.
However, some issues have been forgotten.
Poverty has long been a problem around the world and here at home. As of 2006, more than 17 percent of Oklahomans were below the poverty line. The poverty line is considered to be $20,000 of annual income or less. And with the recent economic crisis, this issue has been brought to the attention of the entire country.
While most of us here at OU are lucky enough to be living the quaint, playful life of a college student, we often forget about those who are not so fortunate. We often forget that we have advantages that a lot of families just don’t have right now. I know I often forget.
Most of us students don’t have to worry about mortgages or foreclosures or filing for bankruptcy or losing our jobs. We don’t have to worry about benefits or Medicare or social security – yet. We don’t have to worry about not getting that pricy dress or new laptop this year.
In the real world, hardship isn’t getting up for an 8 a.m. class or trying to figure out how to get a date. It is being a factory worker in Ohio and getting laid off with no idea of what the future will bring. It is being a single mother who can barely put food on the table for her kids. It is working your ass off every day, only to make minimum wage for the rest of your life.
And the scariest part is at some point in time, this could be how some of us end up. After all, we all know our economy has been playing tricks lately. A lot of people didn’t think they would end up with the short end of the stick this year. But it happens. Some people are poor not because they don’t work hard enough; they are poor because the system works against them.
So let’s work for them. This holiday season, let’s donate food and time to soup kitchens so that no one has to skip a meal. Let’s buy presents for children who might otherwise receive none this year, and lets take a step back during our own holiday festivities to be truly thankful, not for video games or handbags, but for family, friends, happiness and health.
Let’s come back from our wonderful, month-long break with stories to tell of charity and love.
Rosie Sontheimer is a journalism and women’s studies sophomore. Her column appeared every other Thursday.
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JWade 3 years, 5 months ago
A question: How does 17 percent of Oklahomans correlate to the percent of lazy, idiots in the human condition?
I think if parents have five kids, one will turn out to be a loser.
I think you can chalk that up to fact.
sooner4peace 3 years, 5 months ago
Poverty is definitely a big problem worthy of attention but donating food, clothing and meals only address the "symptoms" of poverty not the cause itself. The bigger problem is affluence. We live in a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. At no time in history has the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest been greater. The middle class is dying as more and more families fall beneath the poverty line and the wealthy accumulate more wealth. Company CEOs are getting multimillion dollar Christmas bonuses while millions of Americans are getting pink slips. The war on poverty is not impossible it's just uncomfortable. As Gandhi said, "there is enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed." Think about how much better America would be if companies highest paid employees only made ten times the lowest paid employee. No one would have too much and no one would have too little. The gap between rich and poor and the problems that it creates would be drastically reduced enabling more people to get an education and enjoy a higher standard of living.
Nimmeron 3 years, 5 months ago
The "war on poverty" will never be won so long as people keep looking at it incorrectly: we cannot keep fooling ourselves into thinking that the "system" works against the poor. Poverty is bad - that is a fact. However the source of poverty is not some council of rich people trying to keep wealth to themselves, but rather the fact that America is a meritocracy. While some nepotism occurs, advancement for the most part is based on merit and achievement. The majority of foreclosures that we hear about in the news are not the result of some twisted system, but merely the greed and ambition of people who buy houses bigger than they can afford. When the Democratic congress of the 1970's forced banks to offer adjustable rate mortgages to those who didn't qualify for them, a poison started to infect the housing market. We are just now seeing the results of what we did out of our compassion for the "poor" - we succumbed to the demands of those who wanted to live a lifestyle they couldn't afford. And now we are paying for it. Helping the poor is noble effort, but we cannot achieve it by wealth-redistribution. We cannot (for the most part) blame CEO's, who do actually work. CEO's get bonuses based on how well they have led the company, and are not merely handed big checks in order to poke fun at the poor. If we start punishing those who achieve and rewarding those who do not, what kind of system are we setting up?
jfreezy 3 years, 5 months ago
What we have is more of a reward system than an investment system. Instead of investing in intangible resources of people without competitive precondition, we reward the people who need it least (e.g. jobs that provide health insurance for the people who need the least help with it). Thus, the poverty issue will remain. If your parents only make $30,000 a year, chances are you'll have a hard time going to college, and you will probably earn a smaller real income than your parents. Even if you do, you are almost certain to incur debt. As a result, you are even more likely to enter into a job field due to necessity, thus being sort of trapped in the system. What I mean is, our public education is substandard, our health care is widely unavailable, and the cost of education in unbelievable. In many countries, primo universities only cost about $500 a year or so. You might say we have better universities, but we're really splitting hairs on the majority of them. Aside from the top ones like Harvard and MIT, it's not much better if at all. Without adequate tools available to citizens such as good education, affordable college, and health care, the sad fact is that most people's socioeconomic status will greatly depend on that of their parents'. In effect, there is still a meritocracy, but it is a meritocracy with preconditions. If you are able to afford college or training, then there is a meritocracy. If however, you cannot, there is a dim chance of making it. Speaking from experience, when you're a poor kid with a single mother, you don't think college is for you. I was lucky, but I know a lot of people who weren't so lucky. In the middle classes, college is taken for granted, in the working classes it is seen as a high privilege. So don't say people are lazy and dumb and that's why they're poor, because I know a lot of rich college kids that are both lazy and dumb. That may account for some of it, but the fact is, impoverished people are more or less stranded in America. There is no safety net and there is little help with advancement. Yeah, there is a sort of meritocracy, but much narrower in scope than it need be. For example, I know people in the poorer parts of Europe who are getting degrees and going to advance because it does not cost an arm and a leg. If school only costs a couple hundred dollars a year, more worthy students can attend regardless of the socioeconomic status of their parents. These European students would be much less likely to attend the same level of university in the United States. Let's face it, people start preparing for college at very young ages these days. If your family does not have a history of college attendance, it's going to be hard as a 13 or 14 year old to comprehend what it really means to advance in the world and how to start preparing at a young age for that.