So, my landlady described the man living with her as her foster son. He's in his 40s, and helping her to fix up the place (since his work is doing construction). I recently had a conversation with him that started with, "Hey, so, I'm gonna have to go to jail here soon for a few months." Um, ok. He proceeded, "Yeah, it's complete bullshit. I got a third DUI. The other two, man, those were 13 years ago. I'm a different person now, you know?" At this point I'm thinking, well, you might be a different person but you're clearly making the same mistakes.... He didn't realize, apparently, that they stay on your record for 15 years in our state, and that the third is a felony. So it's jail for 90 days, revoked license, a huge fine, and his car was impounded. He then went on to say, "It's such bullshit, you know? I mean, I'm not some fuckin' criminal. Not like I broke any real laws, ya know? Ha ha."
Now, most people hear this and think, "Holy shit, dude, that is denial of a magnitude I can't even comprehend." That's kinda what I'm thinking, and quite a few other things a lot less mild than that.
But, this man is clearly an alcoholic. There have been plenty of times, including a number of times since he got that DUI, when he's been in his workshop in the garage, wasted. Visibly, swayingly drunk. So, the lightbulb goes off. Ah! He's an alcoholic. It's probably rather amazing that he's only gotten 3 DUIs.
But while you and I see that he has a huge drinking problem, to him, this is normal. He doesn't realize he's an alcoholic. Maybe he will someday, but maybe he won't.
Some of the arguments I'm reading against poor people sound kinda similar to telling an alcoholic, "Well, stop being an alcoholic and your problems will go away!" The problems and solutions seem rather obvious to us, but we're not trapped in the cycle of substance abuse or, in the article's case, poverty. What seems normal to us might not even register as a choice to these people. It's as useful to tell someone who's been stuck in generational poverty, "Don't be poor/don't make these stupid decisions," as it is to tell an alcoholic, "Don't be drunk." They don't see these problems and issues the same way you and I do, any more than my alcoholic neighbor saw that he broke a "real" law and that that makes him "a fuckin' criminal" worthy of jail time.
I'm privileged to be white, to have grown up in a middle-class family with two parents who are still married. I'm not going to judge other people harshly because they didn't win the familial lottery like I did.
As for the nail thing? We have a student who works in my office part-time. Her nails are flippin' awesome. The kind of thing you'd have to be crazy to pay for and then pay for upkeep for. A student salary could never keep up with it. She doesn't pay for it. She's taught herself and even keeps a blog about her nail art. As far as hobbies go, it's pretty cheap and if she advertizes on her blog (I don't know about that) then she might even make a few bucks. So, do you really know that these women you're judging are all getting manis/pedis? Or are they doing some of this themselves in the time that you or I would spend reading articles about poverty and arguing on the internet about whether it's systemic or the result of personal action?