Devon Genua
Aug 26, 2017 · 5 min read
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I come across a fair number of Facebook editorials like this one. They range in severity, coherence, and number of tired clichés about personal responsibility, but they nearly always make the same claim: I overcame adversity and earned what I have without receiving any help, but Black people want to take from me and all the other hardworking white people — and that isn’t fair!

Here, I break down the contents of one of these posts in the hopes of demonstrating that, no, you/your family didn’t end up where you are based solely on hard work and determination…and that’s okay. When the system works, it can do a lot of good. When it doesn’t work, it leaves lots of people behind.

oh yeah imma give any family the house my dad worked 100hr weeks of blue collar work for. he started working in tobacco fields for a nickle an hour when he was 8 yrs old lived on dirt floors half his life went to college despite having to drop out of highschool to support his family at 16yrs old due to his father dying

This post opens with a description of what sounds like pretty extreme poverty, something that was fairly common in rural regions of the United States prior to the mid-1960s, when many of today’s flagship safety net programs took their modern form. Assuming that this person’s father attended public school, he likely benefitted from the National School Lunch Program. When the program shifted its focus to low-income children in the 1970s, it was able to more effectively combat nutritional deficiencies among this population. Today, nearly 50 million children (half of whom are white) are eligible for free and reduced lunch through the National School Lunch Program.

The Social Security Administration is aware that the death of a parent can be a burdensome expense for poor families, and has offered Survivors and Spousal benefits for decades. In all likelihood, this person’s grandmother received “government money” after her husband passed away. Her son (the father of the person who wrote this post) also may have received benefits for being 16 at the time of his (presumably working) father’s death.

built a business from the ground.he has cancer still working everyday long hours at 57 yrs old and supporting my mom all day as she has even worse cancer.

Two mid-life cancer diagnoses in the same household have probably eroded most of this family’s savings and interrupted their plans for retirement. The bills are racking up and life has to go on. Black families have medical crises, too. In fact, the rates of chronic illness among Black Americans are between 1.5 and 2 times higher than white Americans, with Black men more likely to have cancer than any other race-gender group in the country. (We won’t even get in to the environmental and place-based factors behind those numbers). At the same time, white families have always had a higher average net worth than Black families — $117,000 more in 1963 and about $500,000 more in 2013. Cancer and other serious illnesses are heartbreaking and extremely stressful for any family grappling with them, but on average, White families are more equipped to bear the associated costs.

yet yall think this is white privilege and we should give our land or property to someone that lives off the welfare i pay for or someone that hasnt worked hard enough to have the things they want.

Nowhere in this “article” he’s referring to does the author claim that welfare recipients are the ones who should receive land/property. The author talks about a BLM chapter allegedly making demands for black people to receive land/property. The imaginary parallel between being Black and “living off welfare” is 1) not true and 2) blatantly racist. In 2010, 31.8% of all Black families and 31.9% of all White families received TANF benefits. Among those receiving SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), 40% are white and 27% are Black.

Especially after Clinton-era welfare reforms, poor families cannot (and most do not) “live off welfare.” The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act flat-funded TANF at $16 billion a year — meaning that the real value of the program has decreased by about a quarter. Meanwhile, the government loses $80 billion every year thanks to the home mortgage interest tax deduction, and an additional $35 billion for the property tax deduction.

Tax deductions aren’t normally thought of as welfare, but that’s exactly what they are — government-issued benefits predicated on meeting certain criteria. In the case of the home mortgage interest and property tax deductions, you have to own your home. And, the higher your mortgage, the higher the deduction (meaning that wealthier households benefit more). More than three-quarters of white Americans own their homes compared to less than half of Black families, and the value of White-owned homes is about $45,000 more. The person who wrote this post grew up in a home owned by his parents, and I’m willing to bet they’ve claimed the home mortgage interest tax deduction, the property tax deduction, and several others.

nothings givin in life work ur ass off if u want it. both sides of my family are prime examples of coming from poverty to being middle class without government help. without asking for handouts…moral of the story don’t ask or count on handouts if u want it go get it no matter what it is its obtainable with the right amount dedication and work ethic ur dreams will come true just like they did my dad.

This person ended his editorial by talking about intergenerational mobility — how likely you are to move up in socioeconomic status compared to your parents. His father was born in the 1960s, when the majority of children ended up earning more than their parents. Economic mobility has declined sharply since that time, meaning that if his parents were born today, it’d be much harder for them to get out of poverty. In the area where he and I are from, children born into a very low income household only have a 5% chance of earning more than $70,000 a year by the time they’re 30.

I wish it were the case that hard work and determination were really all you needed to live a decent life in this country, but it isn’t that simple. The person who wrote this post denies that white privilege exists,” but what he doesn’t see is that his family’s story, and his story, are the products of systems and policies that benefit white people.

Picture two families at a bowling alley. One family is doing well, getting a fair number of spares and strikes, and the ball never ends up in the gutter. The family in the adjacent lane has some luck, but a lot of the time their ball ends up in the gutter. The first family may credit their success to the fact that they take the time to go bowling every weekend. In reality, though, their lane has been wider the whole time. They aren’t aware of this, because they’ve never bowled in any other lane, and they are able to pay a little extra to reserve that lane for themselves every weekend. That’s white privilege. Invisible comfort, paid access, and dumb luck.

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