Friendly reminder that kids need access to good school lunches because it will provide them with needed nutrients and will help their performance and overall health, NOT because it will “prevent obesity”. We are allowed to be angry about Trump rolling back school lunch regulations without being fatphobic and without body shaming.
Healthy eating should be for actual health, not for trying to attain a single body type.
poor people on SNAP or other benefits do not need “healthy eating” rules imposed on them. restricting their food choices doesn’t make them healthier. when we limit what they can buy we limit their access to sufficient calories. “junk food” is dense with calories and provides efficient energy for the body. fruits and vegetables contribute little to meeting total energy needs and their nutritional content isn’t very beneficial when overall calorie intake is too low.
poor people don’t need food rules imposed from on high, they need ENOUGH food and they need regular access to it. i’m so done with these tepid takes (cc: pbs, npr and other liberal media) on getting poor people to eat “healthier” as though that were some kind of anti-oppressive stance… it’s not! are we willing to do what it takes to make all people food-secure, with regular access to enough food that they want and enjoy? that’s the only thing worth talking about
working class person: I’m forced to beg for money and am at the mercy of other people’s goodwill as I’m facing serious suffering and/or death because my wages don’t cover the expenses I need to literally stay alive
friends of working class person: we will scrape together some of our own funds at the possible detriment of our own families because we have no other choice if we don’t want our friend to, and we can’t believe we have to say this out loud, die
media: This Uplifting Story of Friendship Will Brighten Your Day :)) Look As These Brave People Go On Happy With Their Lives Despite Hardship :)) This Story Proves That Poor People Who Complain About Their Standards Of Living Are Just Not Trying Hard Enough :)))
i hate when someone says “don’t make jokes about rednecks and hillbillies” and some white 21 year old trying to be ‘woke’ says “haha… go ahead and cry your white tears sweatie (:”
no one thinks it’s a racial issue against white people. that’s not why people say to stop that shit. it’s an issue of classism. because the truth is that the majority of y’all who think you’re amazing activists just REALLY fucking hate appalachian people, and i know that because y’all think it’s funny to say “karma’s a bitch!” when something bad happens to an appalachian state.
you don’t care about the poverty in the appalachia and you don’t care about queer people and/or people of color who live in the appalachia. you don’t care about education in the appalachia and you don’t care that these low rates of education mean higher rates of poverty and child poverty, which persist over the years. rural children are twice as likely to live in areas with persistent poverty. you care that poverty stricken children are statistically less likely to not have timely immunizations, have higher delinquency rates, and have lower academic achievement — but only when we’re talking about urban areas outside of the appalachia.
people in our region die earlier than most. mortality rates are higher in the appalachia, and they’re even higher for people of color that live in the appalachia. suicide rates are higher than anywhere else in the country by 17% — it’s 31% higher in central appalachia, and in rural areas within the appalachia, it’s 27% higher than metro appalachia. cancer morality rate is 10% higher, and it’s 15% higher in rural appalachia than metro appalachia. COPD mortality rate is 27% higher, and 55% higher in rural appalachia than metro appalachia. injury mortality rate is 33% higher, and it’s 47% higher in rural appalachia than in metro appalachia. stroke mortality rate is 14% higher — and you guessed it’s, these rates are higher in rural areas vs metro areas by 8%.
the rate of Years of Potential Life Lost, which measures premmature mortality from all causes of death, is 25% higher in appalachia, and 40% higher in rural vs metro areas.
the appalachia has an opioid epidemic. in 2015, our rate of death with drugs was 65% higher than the national average. 69% of those drug deaths were from opioids. these deaths have a connection to our poverty and education rates. the poorer you are, and the less educated you are, the more likely you are to die from an opioid death.
when i say “don’t make jokes about rednecks and hillbillies”, that doesn’t mean i think you’re being racist against white people (and again — the majority of people who claim this also happen to be white 🙄). i say that because you are perpetuating extremely toxic rhetoric about our region, you are promoting stigma, you are encouraging blatant classism, and you are furthering the idea that we somehow “deserve” it because our elected officials vote republican. it’s not cute. stop acting like none of us have the right to call you out on your classist bullshit. like i’m sorry if this comes off as too aggressive but i am sooooo sick of y’all thinking it’s funny that our region is suffering.
and before anyone asks me for resources and links: google exists. i did my research and you can do it too.
a big problem with the people who say stuff like this is they don’t realize just how many “rednecks and hillbillies” are non-white. there are so many appalachian and southern POC that also suffer through these conditions but people like to cling to their idea that the only hicks are white hicks, so they couldnt care less if places like WV or KY just fell off the map, and to hell with who it is that’s actually hurting.
people also act like it’s only appalachian and southern whites that voted for trump and that vote republican and it’s not true – half of all white women voted for trump. the rich ones and the poor ones. it’s not a problem that’s tied specifically to southern and appalachian white people but it’s an easy scapegoat and allows people to not think about what they’re actually saying.
as long as they can say that it’s just them shitty racist white hicks that are suffering, then they don’t have to actually care about them. they can ignore them and not do anything to help them. like another person said in the notes, the teacher strike in WV is a better example of leftist organization than a whole lot of the people saying shit about hillbillies have ever done but they don’t care about that because, well, theyre just white hillbillies so what does it matter?
Because I have gotten a lot of anti-rural life jokes thrown at me. Most people don’t know I’m from a rural area, because I currently live in a big ass concrete city, so like… The concept of rural is super obscure. I told someone where I live, and they thought I meant some place with some farms, so they were like “ugh, rednecks, that must be awful.” Fuck off, because I come from a place with real farms & rural land, and just cause you think we work at a super progressive place, and because you think “rural” folks are all Trump-humpin’ far religious right, LGBT-hatin’, POC hatin’ folks, that’s your problem.
So the place I grew up in? Yes, it tends to vote Republican, but in the current primary? There are folks runnin’ for Republican that very specifically want to support things what we need: there’s a major development that the city side of the state wants to produce, which means it would royally fuck over the rural side–it would destroy environmental reserves, especially, which is what we all survive off of in the rural areas. The Democratic side is literally the “bad” guy in the race. Destroying the natural resources of the area would be terrible for everyone–if you only care about POC, yes, it would screw them over too. Because we all live off the land.
A lot of the redneck types require the land, because remember: it’s cheaper to buy a box of bullets than it is to buy meat for the year. That’s how most folks I know who are poor survive… And this is why I struggle in the city. I’m used to thinking “If I need to, I could always trust the forest & river.” If I need food, it’s there. It’s in the land; I can plant it, or I can hunt, fish, and forage. If I need something, I could… Make it. Because materials… They exist. Somewhere, out there. But the city? I have to fucking buy berries? So I don’t eat them too much. I need wood? I have to fucking buy it, what the hell??? I need leather? I have to buy it; I can’t just ask a friend to barter for it (or maybe pay ‘em, but the leather out here is more pricey). Especially as an artist, this astounds & disgusts me in some way. You can barter, too. I helped out a friend on their family cow farm; they gave me meat & a skull. You can weave and whittle. There’s a sort of backup.
But the city is harsh and expensive. We can’t maintain a garden here. I can’t trust the land to provide. Even suburbia suffers that. So the poorer you are, the less you can live in a city. And its not like it’s all happy & fun in the rural areas. Poverty is shit. But to me, I feel a little safer. Sometimes you barter… (At least its pretty; the city isn’t very peaceful or beautiful.)
And yea??? There are queer folks in rural areas. And a lot of the ones I know find it horrifying, the idea of leaving. I went back early this year & chatted to one woman I know, who is a lesbian, and she was… Sort of disgusted at the idea of leaving and of the hatred that city folk have of rural areas, especially through an LGBT lens. There’s a major communicative disconnect, because what works for LGBT rights in the city doesn’t work for the rural areas, and this ends up drowning out the rural folks’ voices. Which is especially dangerous, because they may not be great support for the issues of rural LGBT folks. This stereotyping or hate of rednecks/hillbillies/rurality is damaging the people ya’ll claim to say you’re trying to help.
I’m going to co-sign all this and also go a step further.
Even if someone IS a white, straight, Trump-supporting Republican redneck, you should still care if they’re suffering due to issues facing rural people. No one should suffer needlessly because of the limited resources, lack of access to education and medical care, or structural poverty in their home. We should always care about those issues no matter who is being afflicted.
^Cosigned.
I live and work in a very rural county, which also happens to contain the (small) capital city of the state. Our county court system, I am learning firsthand, is absolute fucking bullshit at dealing with rural, white, Trump-voting people’s extremely real and pressing legal problems, because they refuse to understand that living on the edge of crushing poverty, even on large pieces of land, with half your “income” coming directly from what you plant, hunt, or barter for yourself, is a legitimate and widespread way people live, and it presents a serious access to justice issue. Our bureaucracies and our systems for providing assistance depend so much on someone being able to provide detailed information about their income. In a tight-knit rural community of exclusively very poor people, where people constantly help each other out of simple economic necessity, using systems of barter and payment dictated by a complex and long-standing social structure and informed by what needs the participants have that specific day, asking someone to provide the kind of close documentation needed in a normal court case is idiotic. And judges won’t believe someone from a rural part of the county who tries to explain that – it’s seen as laziness, as an irritating lack of education about how the system works, and, sometimes, as outright lying.
I listen to one of my white, rural-born, Trump-votin’ clients talk about how they feel walking into any kind of government office or courtroom, and I’m not going to sanctimoniously inform them how much worse people in other places have it, if they’d only ~educate themselves~ and ~care about other people.~ They have every reason to believe this system’s not on their side and the people assigned to deal with their affairs don’t understand them, even on this very local level. And holy shit: That’s not even touching the situation of the many, many South American immigrants living in our rural county, often speaking indigenous languages for which interpretation is not available, connecting with the system only as undocumented persons or criminals. I can’t speak to those issues as closely because we can accommodate maybe 1% of their cases. They’re here, on our farms, in our trailer parks, working the land; we simply don’t see them, because the system has not created a space for them to exist.
The survival issues that rural people in poverty struggle with are incredibly different from those that urban people in poverty struggle with – even when they’re not that far removed from our small city. Even when the rural and urban people you picked off the street to make the comparison were the same race, the same age, etc.
Also, goddamn, cosigned about queer people in rural areas. Here’s a hint: Don’t insult someone’s intelligence or tell them you’re sorry for them when they tell you where they live, ever.
someone: so what do you think is the solution to homelessness?
me, socialist:
Let homeless people occupy peopleless homes, build houses for use rather than exchange, 3D print comfortable houses in a day, convert corporate skyscrapers into housing and commercial malls into publicly-accessible community centers with living commons and entertainment
When you say it to people and they break
“But the money? … we can’t just? But, Money? We can’t just… help… people? Can we? The Money. We can’t just help people? Like that? We can’t just? Money?”
There’s more to it than free real estate.
A massive portion of homeless people are mentally ill, and many of those illnesses aren’t being treated. Homeless people who have been on the streets and had their illnesses untreated for most of their lives aren’t going to adjust super well to suddenly having a place to live.
We need to build safety nets. We need social workers and mental health care professionals to help the homeless.
Every person deserves a roof and health care. Those two things need to go hand in hand.
The Housing First model of dealing with homelessness does exactly this. But actually when homeless people with mental illness or drug dependencies get into housing they start to do a lot better. Yes there are safety nets and things to work on after but it starts with housing. Homeless shelters right now aren’t doing enough because they either limit stays or make it so that drug addicts aren’t allowed to stay there at all. Obviously they’re still helping people but the Housing First model would actually help a lot more people long term and even be cheaper for the government in the long run. Unfortunately I don’t have sources but if someone can add them that’d be great.
Honestly the unmitigated gall of saying that homeless people wouldn’t “adjust well” to the safety, comfort, dryness, and stability of the basic need that is reliable shelter because they’re mentally ill, like, could you possibly find a way to insult and step on two marginalized groups at once more?
I know for a fact I’ve told this story on here before but I’ll never get over the time when I was working retail and I was cashing out some lady so I asked “cash, debit or credit how are you paying, ma’am?” And she said “that’s none of your business.” And demanded to speak to my manager about my invasive question
So when I was working as a 35-year-old cashier in 2005 (to supplement my extremely part-time job as office manager at a tech start-up in order to justify paying a babysitter) part of my training included how to be kind to people paying with food stamps. Food stamps had only just been renamed SNAP, and food stamp debit cards had just been issued.
We asked “Cash, check, or card?” And didn’t look to see what they used (the computerized register showed it only on the cashier’s side).
And just in case they had forgotten to separate SNAP-eligible food from ineligible household necessities, we had a script for that too. We would already have made sure to ring up food first, so that we didn’t have to void out the whole order and start again. For the rest of the line, we’d smile sweetly and say, “I’m so sorry, computer issue, the supervisor will open another line when she comes to fix it.”
And only the supervisor, the customer, and the cashier would ever know about the food stamps, because all the other customers would be shuffled off to another line.
There’s also this larger attitude that “creativity” in any fashion is something that’s exclusively only available to ppl with disposable income, as if 1) being creative is an indulgence that the poor shouldn’t be able to afford, 2) things done with the intention of surviving/scraping by can’t also be creative works, and 3) creativity can’t exist in spaces that prioritize survival, even though its the exact skill that enables poor people to survive.
I deleted that post with the tweet talking abt how crafting is intersectional, because I figured I should read the article first before dissing it. And I’m halfway through it now, but I just want to say that it’s really interesting how things like DIY & crafting are looked at totally differently based on someone’s class and income level.
Like the article talks abt how their mother & grandmother didn’t teach them to sew or knit because they were single working parents who “didn’t have the time for such indulgences” that the author, a middle-class person, does. But it’s like…these things aren’t indulgences? They’re not luxuries? And poor people definitely know how to do all of these things because knowing how to sew is the difference between having to buy new clothes every time something wears out even a little bit and reusing something for another little while.
Like you see this attitude with a lot of things, like how thrifting suddenly became this bougie hipster pass time when even just a few years ago people would have wrinkled their nose at the idea of someone buying castoffs. Or having a garden to grow your own food, which poor people often have to do out of necessity. Or even something as simple like a poor person wearing ripped and faded jeans because they can’t afford to replace them, while Dolce & Gabanna sells them fr an upwards of $500 each.
Like people will turn their nose up and sneer when it’s low income people doing all of these things in order to survive, or they’ll flat out ignore it. But then when the middle class get their hands on it, it’s an “indulgence” or a “hobby” that only ppl with “disposable income” can do. And if they’re really annoying abt it, they’ll turn around and write a think piece abt how much money they’re saving, fixing their old clothes, and gee if only the poors would start doing this then they wouldn’t be so poor anymore. 👀🙄👀🙄👀
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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