The other morning, I woke up and started to make myself a bagel with cream cheese. My grandchildren were just finishing up their choice of breakfast and heading off to school. I took a seat at the table, prepared to enjoy a cup of coffee with my bagel. The sight of the smooth white cheese took me back to my childhood days.
Bagels and cream cheese were not staples at our house on Jersey Avenue. As a kid, I had never heard the word 'bagel,' which is amazing considering they became popular in the US in the '70s. However, my family could barely afford sliced bread, let alone some fancy roll with a hole in the center. I had been introduced to bagels at my first real job; I was nearly 18 at the time. The owner of the company I had worked for was Jewish, and he’d occasionally bring warm bagels in a large-brown paper bag. The strange, round, dense rolls seemed to be preferred by white people. I was used to buttered bread with margarine or sugar bread (which I knew was inappropriate to eat in public); however, five years later when I left that company, I was an ‘everything bagel with cream cheese’ kind of girl.
My old life seemed like an episode of 'Good Times.' The struggle was real. Rent was always late, and your credit at the store--due. There were many hungry mornings and afternoons. The only promise my mother ever made to us was dinner. Other than that, you hand to fend for yourself. Not very much has changed in my life today, yet everything is different.
Snacking on my bagel and sipping my coffee, I realized that poverty and being poor are two very different things. When I grew up, I may not have had a choice between French toast sticks or cereal, but there was plenty of bread and butter and there was always tomorrow, one more day closer to the first of the month. Then we had eggs and toast. Even back then my mindset was rich. I have never possessed an overabundance of resources. Like most others my age or in my bracket of lifestyle, the day-to-day struggle continues to be real. Balancing on the roof is not just a job reserved for the Fiddler. I may lack an abundance of wealth, but I am very far from poor. Poor is a statistic needed to keep non-profits—profiting and politicians in their seats, “Blessed are those who feed the poor.”
In the '70s and '80s, poverty victimized many communities. People lacked resources and employment opportunities. Unemployment and crack were real things. What made poverty bearable was hope. My generation hoped to survive the struggle by putting in the work. Of course, there was the overwhelming fear that enough weight could potentially pull you down, and if you fell down, given the lack of opportunities in the culture we lived in, there was the threat of staying down and becoming poor. Poor in mind, poor in body and poor in spirit. But what didn’t kill us, made us stronger. Therefore, many individuals didn’t stay down—they rose up to fight another day. Were there losses in the battle? Sure. Our prison systems speak to this truth. But many of those that were incarcerated made it out to live another day. Any casualties were a consequence of sin--one way or another we all will have to pay.
Today, when I hear some of the cries about systemic racism and the mistreatment of black and brown people, I can't help but roll my eyes. Particularly when they come from the voices of politicians, or from a generation that wore Jordans and Jerbough jeans. Individuals that have never stood on cheese lines or carried plastic bags 2-3 blocks to the laundromat or worked in factories earning $6.25 per hour. I recognize there are still plenty of James, Florida, JJ, Michael, and Thelma Evans in the US—don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people still live in the projects with limited resources—but that is poverty. Combined with this is the poor mindset touted by political feigns and adopted by individuals who receive Section-8 housing and food stamps. They may have free housing and foodstamps, they still complain about not having cable—as they bust $250 on a bundle of human hair. Poor is not defined by the lack of recourse. In this present day, "poor," is the belief in a system that systematically perpetuates the impoverishment of black people, a notion vehemently expressed by those comfortably situated in their kitchens, at their granite island table, as they spread white cream cheese—