by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
I spent the early part of my social work career working with white rural poor families in northern N.J. This is not what most people think of when they give a thought about the chronically poor in this state, yet the Appalachian Trail runs right through the northern highlands.
I watched Hillbilly Elegy last night. It is a true story about class-based discrimination in America which is an underlying reality for poor communities everywhere. The movie tells the story of the enormous pressures that inhibit upward social mobility and crush healthy childhood development. It is the story of one man's struggle to rise above his circumstances and all the pressures that worked against him.
Intractable impoverishment destroys young lives. It can even impact brain development in the very young. It can set children and young adults up for a lifetime of social failures. It traps whole generations in a cycle of poverty and disfunction from which there is almost no escape. This is a story seldom told. For me, it was painful to watch. But it is also a beautifully told and uplifting story.
Those who escape the devastating impacts of unrelenting poverty are rare and extraordinary souls. But this story also highlights a very powerful truth. It only takes one determined, self-sacrificing, and caring adult in a child's life to give them a fighting chance. This film is a tribute to those flawed but beautiful people who take on that role.
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection. It is a good title for this movie. We can learn from it, but we only get a limited, gilded glimpse of life at the bottom of the social ladder because the author himself had escaped from it.
As a person commentator on Facebook, “ For every one who manages to rise above such harsh circumstances thousands of others flounder or drown, and most are judged a personal failure, rather than societal.”
So true!
And who isn't enamored by stories of people in lowly circumstances rising above it, defeating all obstacles on their path to success? Our rags to riches mythologies are what most informs our national identity. It is the story of Abe Lincoln, of Thomas Edison, and of Bill Gates. But these stories are exceedingly rare. We are attracted to them because they assuage our guilt for allowing millions of children to grow up in poverty. The harsh, debilitating conditions these children and their families face are entirely preventable.
People who do well tend to attribute their success to their strength of character. They say they applied themselves to overcome the obstacle that stood in their way. This may be true but it is seldom a complete picture. Even when helped by others they feel especially worthy of that help and fail to see that we are all interdependent. But the opposite perception often arises when we think about the poor. We collectively view their lack of success as evidence of some weakness in character or morality. Lowered expectations of them then become reinforced when the destructive forces in their lives inevitably lead to self-destructive choices.
Those who have more may be empathetic to the poor and drop off a box of spaghetti at the local food pantry, for example. Those who have much often take a tough-love approach to the poor. They believe that hardship builds character, that the less fortunate should lift themselves up by their bootstraps.
Either way, this is class discrimination. We discriminate when we take too much credit for our own good fortune while viewing those who struggle as less deserving.
Individuality and self-reliance are very much part of this national mythology. We lionize people who rise above their failing communities or dysfunctional families. They become shining examples of what we ourselves would like to be. Even the popular (and excellent) musical Hamilton carries this theme. We forget that what makes these examples so exceptional are the millions of people who don't escape their stratum. Our social policies should not be aimed at rewarding the successful, but at preventing the horrible degradation of children and adults living within cycles of poverty here in the richest country ever.
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Picture Credit: Screenshot
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