Poor People Deserve To Taste Something Other Than

Shame

Ijeoma Oluo

May 12, 2016 · 5 min read

“They’re buying steak and lobster with food stamps!”

Every few months this headline, or one like it, finds its way
around conservative publications, into political pundit shows,
and onto senate floors. A relic of the “Welfare Queen” stories of
the ’80s, the fear of poor people squandering the charity of
hard-working American tax dollars leads to countless classist
memes, reactionary petitions, and tighter restrictions on the
ways in which poor Americans are allowed to live.

When I hear these words, I don’t think of lobster or steak, I think

of Boston cream pie. A Boston cream pie was what my mother
came home with one evening when I was in the 6th grade. She
walked in the house after another evening of working late and
placed a paper grocery bag on the dining table.

“Kids!” she announced excitedly, “I’ve got a treat for you!”

My brother and I gathered around the table as she produced a
cake from the grocery bag. “Ever have a Boston cream pie?” she
asked.

I was furious with her.

By 6th grade I had already figured out that we were poor and that
it was a moral failure on our part. We were defective, and
therefore unable to afford the things that normal families could
afford. My friends had snack cabinets full of treats that they could
just reach into whenever they felt like it. We had no phone, often
no electricity, and if there was a package of ramen in our
cupboard, it was a very good day. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I
knew that this was all my mom’s fault. She had married the wrong
man, she had gotten the wrong job, she hadn’t saved enough or
scraped enough or worked hard enough. But we had no food in
our fridge and I was pretty sure this Boston cream pie was why.

And it wasn’t even pie; it’s a cake. I was so embarrassed and

ashamed and angry to see it sitting there on our table.

Nonetheless, at my mom’s insistence, I sat at the table with my

mother and brother to eat some of it, resentfully choking down
small bites and picking at the cream filling while my brother
devoured his in seconds. My mother slowly lifted each bite to her
mouth, closing her eyes as she chewed, making small sighing
noises. She talked about the first time she had ever had Boston
cream pie as a kid, when she was about our age, on vacation with
her parents. “It was so indulgent,” she remembered.
I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want my mom to enjoy any
part of our poor existence. I wanted her to be ashamed and sorry.

I didn’t understand that my mom already was ashamed and sorry.

I didn’t know that she walked around ashamed and sorry every
day. I didn’t see that she stood in food bank and church lines
ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that she went to holiday collection
services ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that she took us to our
free dental appointments ashamed and sorry. I didn’t see that
every time she passed over those food stamps to try to feed us she
was ashamed and sorry. I didn’t realize that every message that
had surrounded me and told me that we were poor because my
mom was a bad mom who couldn’t take care of us had not only
surrounded my mom, but had filled her lungs and rested in her
heart. I understood only what the pundits had wanted me to see —
that she was a poor woman who was squandering what she
already didn’t deserve.

And that is what we are saying, when we talk disdainfully about

poor people buying lobster and steak, or nice phones, or new
clothes. We are saying, you are not sorry and ashamed enough.
You do not hate your poor existence enough. Because when you
are poor, you are supposed to take the help that is never enough
and stretch it so you have just enough misery to get by. Because
when you are poor you are supposed to eat ramen every day and
you are supposed to know that every bite of that nutrition-less
soup is your punishment for bad life decisions. Your kids are
supposed to be mocked at school for their outdated clothes — how
else will they know to not end up like you when they grow up?
And for heaven’s sake, the last thing you should be allowed to do
is to take one evening with your kids to sit at a table and eat a dish
of pure indulgence in the hopes that your children will have a few
minutes to feel the same way you did when you were a kid and you
weren’t ashamed to exist.

I look back on this time and I do feel shame. Not for being poor,
but for allowing the judgement of others to dehumanize both me
and my mom. I’m ashamed because as I sat at that table, I didn’t
taste a single bite of that Boston cream pie. I haven’t had Boston
cream pie since, and I doubt I ever will, because the opportunity
for it to taste like indulgence and humanity and normality has
been lost, and now it can only taste like regret.

And that is all that we accomplish, when we shame poor people

for daring to live for a moment like they are not at the mercy of
others. We deny them the opportunity to live like actual human
beings worthy of dignity and respect. Everyone should be able to
bring home a steak or a lobster, or a Boston cream pie, once in a
while.
Questions:

1. Is there a clear Thesis Statement? If yes, what is it? If no, what is the main idea?
Yes there is a clear thesis statement: When we talk disdainfully about poor people
buying lobster and steak, or nice phones, or new clothes. We are saying, you are not
sorry and ashamed enough.

2. Is there a clear PCR? Can you write the different parts? If not, what is the purpose of this
article?

3. How does the author make her point? (Think technique)

4. Have you ever thought of poverty from this point of view?
5. What connections/inferences can you make between this article and the reading in your
textbook on pages 42-43?
6. Can you find examples of Gerunds and Infinitives after Certain Verbs, Relative Clauses
or the Present Perfect/Present Perfect Progressive in the text and highlight them?