The following two articles are a preview of an upcoming Rational Island Publishers publication introducing RC liberation work to new RCers. It will include a chapter from each International Liberation Reference Person and other key liberation leaders summarizing the liberation theory for their constituency.
Now Is the Time for Poor People’s Liberation
By Gwen Brown, International Liberation Reference Person for Raised-Poor People
We humans are beginning to face the fact that our species, and all species on our planet, are in trouble and that the reason is an economic system that bases decisions on profit, not on what people or the environment need. Although capitalism at first moved many people out of poverty and into the middle class, it has subsequently left most of the world’s people poor, and created an environmental crisis.
NOT SETTLING FOR A HURTFUL SYSTEM
Now—in this time of crisis—it has to be true that we can figure out a more workable system. It has to be true that we do not have to leave most people of the world in poverty.
Poor people—and particularly Black, brown, and Indigenous poor people—face greater life risks, endure more crises, and have fewer resources, opportunities, and protections than do people of other classes. We should all be outraged at these devastating and often deadly effects of poverty. We would be if we hadn’t become numb to them.
Poverty hurts not just poor people; it hurts people of every class. Our system of unequal access to, control of, and distribution of resources diminishes everyone’s life. It burdens every child’s good mind with class-based distresses, such as confusions about “better than/less than,” which make both those supposed “inferior” and those supposed “superior” feel alone, discouraged, and fearful. We mustn’t settle for a system that hurts children that way; we must create conditions that allow all the world’s children to grow into the thoughtful, caring adults they were born to be. For future generations to flourish, the effects of poverty on people and planet must be faced and eliminated.
MORE AWARENESS RAISED DUE TO COVID-19
Along with its devastating effects, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased general awareness of class and race oppressions. People see that poor people, particularly of the Global Majority, are dying in greater numbers (as usual). They see unemployment, food shortages, evictions, and lack of health care creating dangerous living conditions in many countries and for whole new groups. They newly value “essential workers.” As people awaken to truths about oppressions that have long been with us, opportunities for change grow.
THE NEED TO RAISE AWARENESS EVEN FURTHER
In our taking leadership toward a more just and caring world, an important step is to learn, and inform others, about how our economy works. In particular, we need to understand “better than/less than” distresses—how they are installed, and how they divide and exploit. We need to understand why the poor are poor and the rich are rich. It’s simple, but the truth has been obscured so that the few could gain, politically and economically.
KEY TRUTHS ABOUT POVERTY AND CLASS OPPRESSION
Here are some key truths we should all understand about how poverty and class oppression work:
- Raised-poor people are good. We are inherently brilliant, powerful, and lovable. We have always done our best to resist the oppressive messages that landed on our great minds and tried to convince us that we are not okay. Even though we have been hurt and confused by class oppression, we have held on to strengths that the larger society barely sees or recognizes. Generosity. Intelligence. A creativity seen in everyday life, poetry, music, art, dance. Love of our children. Willingness to help one another in raising children. Compassion for the oppressed. Deep love and connections. Making things work with few resources. Keeping material goods in perspective. Showing feelings. Being real. Seeing injustice. Seeing that society is not fine and understanding where it needs fixing. Although we carry distress recordings and some rigid attitudes and behaviors, underneath our humanness is intact. In spite of experiences that told us we were less deserving, we have always fought to have good lives and to help others have good lives.
- Most of the world’s children grow up poor. Besides living with scarcity of food, housing, health care, education, and material resources, most experience violence and messages of inferiority, which they internalize and repeat to themselves all their lives. If left without help, they are pulled to act out the hurts on one another, including on their children.
- Most of the world’s women are poor. Although historically most people everywhere have been poor, in every economic class the men have gotten more respect, education, and economic advantages than have the women. Women’s work, less valued, has been mostly unpaid. Despite some gains, unjust work, childcare, and health care policies still keep most of the world’s women in poverty. In keeping themselves and their children fed and alive, they face difficult, sometimes degrading decisions.
- Blaming poor people is a key feature of class oppression. Poverty is not natural. It is not due to personal shortcomings. It is not due to laziness (most poor people are working poor), stupidity, or inferiority. It is also not due to any world shortage of resources. It is due to systemic, oppressive economic and social policies and practices.
- Class oppression transfers wealth to the top. Workers are typically paid less than the value of their work. Those who control wealth pay as little as they can, keeping as much as they can for themselves and for influencing policies that move even more money to the top. They exercise control through access to jobs, housing, food, education, health care, policing, material goods, and who gets to be leaders. Having a poverty class is useful to them. It frightens workers into accepting low wages and not organizing for change.
- Violence and its threat are key features of class oppression. Humans don’t easily agree to be subjected to dehumanizing class exploitation. Class societies have relied on war, oppressive policing, and other kinds of violence for enforcement. The violence that often flares up in poor families and neighborhoods results directly from the violence that for generations has been used to control people and force them to work for little or no pay.
- Lies, misinformation, distortions, and scare tactics are key strategies in class oppression. To confuse people, divide them, and influence them to not resist exploitation, the oppressive society tells strategic lies, plays on [restimulates] old fears, and installs new fears. It says not to believe science. It says untrue and demeaning things about people of various identity groups. It says that some people are “better” and “more deserving.” It says that people should assimilate, if possible, into a higher class, win at any cost, and avoid “inferior” people.
- Pitting people against each other is a key feature of class oppression. The oppressive society divides the working class (which includes the middle class). It tells sections of the working class that they are “better,” especially than the poor. It installs confusions and fears then inflames them, saying, for example, that some sections of the working class are dangerous or that they are the cause of economic problems. In this way it manipulates many working-class people into aligning themselves with policies that transfer wealth to the owning class and into acting in oppressive ways toward those with fewer resources.
- White racism is currently the major way the working class is divided. Harsh class societies existed before racism was invented, but for centuries white racism has been a key tool for getting white workers to feel superior to People of the Global Majority and to turn against them, viciously and violently. The division is central to enabling policies that siphon most of society’s wealth to wealthy white people. That is to say, racist lies serve to justify colonization, genocide, slavery, low pay, harsh working conditions, brutal policing, and more. Racism, white supremacy, and genocidal attitudes today threaten most of the world’s people.
- Jews have been targeted for blame. For thousands of years, when economic conditions have deteriorated, oppressive societies have scapegoated Jews and targeted them for violence and genocide. Directing blame toward Jews has served to divert people’s upset away from the ruler class, whose policies have caused the deterioration. Anti-Semitism continues today and flares up viciously when the working class experiences economic hard times.
- Any group can be blamed. Those who set up and control systems that transfer wealth to the top win policy support, and nurture their wealth, by redirecting blame to any number of scapegoated groups—currently including Jews, Muslims, immigrants, People of the Global Majority, and LGBTQ people. Today’s injustices exist largely because the oppressive society has turned people against one another, confused them about where society’s real problems lie, and lied about who gets their hard-earned money. If not for such confusions and divisions, people would never allow most of the world’s wealth to go to the top two percent of the world’s people.
- Our interests are the same. All who grow up poor meet with deprivation, harshness, humiliation, and other obstacles as they try to make their lives work. No matter what other identity groups they belong to, all poor and working-class people share the same economic interests. To have the world we all want, they need to see how they are lied to, divided, and used to help the rich get richer. Large-scale systemic change is unlikely until large numbers of people understand the divide-and-conquer owning-class tool. People from the working class, and every economic class, need to wake up, move past divisions, and organize for change. Poor people, being most of the world’s people, need to be central.
- Raised-poor and poor people want respect and good counseling. When you interact with, and counsel, poor or raised-poor people, give them your full respect. It’s the key contradiction to the internalized messages of inferiority. Discharge anything in your way of seeing the brilliant human being struggling to get out. Discharge anything in your way of reaching for a deep, caring, honest, equal connection. If you are an ally, discharge all feelings of superiority and entitlement. Read the Draft Liberation Policy Statement for People Raised Poor <https://www.rc.org/publication/theory/liberationpolicy/raised_poor_gb>, which includes suggestions for allies and poor people. See also the two helpful commitments and the RC Community goal on ending classism on the next page.
SOME CLASS-BASED RECORDINGS OF RAISED-POOR PEOPLE
Some class-based distress recordings that raised-poor people may want help with are as follows:
- Shame and humiliation
- Doubts about their intelligence
- Thinking small about what they can do
- Not being able to “want” big and expecting to be defeated
- Difficulties with authority figures
- Addictions
- Staying quiet and not speaking up for themselves
- Struggles with money
- Caretaking patterns
- Chronic worry, anger and outrage, broken heartedness, discouragement, urgency, secrecy, exhaustion
COMMITMENTS FOR PEOPLE RAISED POOR
Below are two helpful commitments for people raised poor:
1. I solemnly promise to always remember it was never my/our fault that I/we was/were born into a society which uses poverty to perpetuate the oppression of all people. We are the majority and the natural leaders of the entire world. I promise to remember my/our goodness, strength, and intelligence. I will settle for nothing less than complete respect and complete opportunity for everyone. Furthermore, I will personally see to it [make it happen].
2. I will always act like the intelligent woman/man/person that I am. This will mean _________.
RC’S GOAL ON ENDING CLASSISM
Here is the goal on ending classism adopted by the 2017 World Conference of the RC Communities:
That the members of the RC Community, in order to move toward a rational society free of exploitation, commit ourselves to do the following:
- Build connections with and learn from members of the economic classes that are underrepresented in our Community yet who represent the majority of the world’s people—the sector of the working class engaged in the direct production of goods and services, and poor people.
- Get the theory and practice of RC into their hands and encourage, support, and follow their leadership.
- Face, discharge on, and challenge any distress that causes us to believe that some lives are more important than others, to seek economic advantage over one another, or to be preoccupied with irrationally seeking comfort and security.
- Discharge toward a full understanding of the class society and its inherent destructive nature and communicate this understanding to others in our own way.
CREATING A BETTER WORLD
We do not have to settle for a world in which most of the wealth goes to the top two percent while others are left to struggle and taught to fear and resent one another. Our beautiful species and our beautiful planet deserve better. We need to figure out how to get the tools of Co-Counseling to people from all class backgrounds, particularly the poor and working class, and figure out how to change our economic system so that instead of insuring extravagant lifestyles for a few, it bases decisions on what is good for all people, and all species.
Now is the time to be the leaders we were born to be. No matter how we feel, we will have better lives if we act on the assumption that something better is possible and that together we can make it happen. The present moment is so full of possibilities; let’s not waste it. Every step forward, no matter how small, matters. What is your next step?
Supplemental Reading
Raised-Poor Policy Statement. Gwen Brown and other raised-poor leaders. On the RC website, at <https://www.rc.org/publication/theory/liberationpolicy/raised_poor_gb>.
Brown, Gwen. We Who Were Raised Poor. Seattle: Rational Island Publishers, 1994
Jackins, Harvey. “The Chronic Patterns of Classism.” In A Better World. Seattle: Rational Island Publishers, 1992, pp. 287-293
Jackins, Harvey. The Enjoyment of Leadership. Seattle: Rational Island Publishers, 1987
Brown, Gwen. Why Lead in RC. Seattle: Rational Island Publishers, 1999
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
(Present Time 202, January 2021)