My Ignorance

I hear it often and do not know where it comes from, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

For most of my life I have not been humble enough to acknowledge I didn’t have all the answers, or know enough to resolve, solve, or fix something. This leads to a propensity to put forth platitudes or convenient “solutions” for others (thinking that I know best).

I will give an example: In the past, I would have thought it was appropriate to think and/or say that if members of the African-American community wanted society to care about black lives, they would be out working to make black fathers step up and support their families.

WOW such ignorance! I hear things like this often from white people, I have said this! It belies the fact that our social welfare systems are designed to break up poverty level families. YES, the systems developed out of good intentions are largely formulated from a self-righteous know-it-all perspective. They may provide some relief to families, but here are some things of which you may be unaware which drive poverty level families apart.

If a woman wants to go to work and have childcare assistance, she must give the social welfare representatives the information required to place the father of her child (children) on child support. Sounds reasonable, right? But she is entitled to help because of her income level alone. The “forcing” her to “put him on paper” (this is what it is called in poverty level homes) results in three negative outcomes:

1. If the father is poverty level, in most cases the minimum amount to be taken from his paycheck leaves him without enough to live on, meaning the father of the children doesn’t have enough income to sustain his own existence.

2. If the father cannot pay, he can have a routine traffic stop turn into a jail stay until some form of payment of back child support can be made (why do we allow debtors prison in this day and age).

3. If the woman chooses not to participate in placing the father on child support she loses her assistance.

This is only ONE of the systems in place, which routinely adversely affect those in poverty, thus disproportionately affecting the black communities in our inner cities.

NEXT:

Let’s continue reviewing the hoops low income families must go through to maintain assistance:

(disproportionately affecting People of Color in inner cities specifically)

1. After complying with the requirements to place the non-custodial parent, usually the father, on child support, and after assistance begins, the recipient is subject to the following- Letters coming regularly asking for re-certification information, Required meetings and Required court appearances, with no consideration to scheduling.

a. Having personally received these benefits before let me express how counterproductive this is. First, if the person receiving assistance has a job and you are continually (I had eight requests for calls, meetings, and court dates in six months) telling them when and where they must be to receive assistance, their job will be affected. I propose a yearly certification and if the court is going for child support from non-custodial parent don’t require custodial parent’s attendance.

b. The almost monthly letters for confirmation of facts already supplied on the application is aggravating and most require a phone call or two to determine how to address. My average time per one of these automatically generated and irritating unnecessary letters is three to four hours to achieve nothing. I suggest we cease these altogether. Our Social Service Agencies already have access to income of recipients as they routinely reset your benefit amounts whether you update them or not, so they are getting the information electronically.

2. Where else in our society do we ask people to prove over and over they should receive something? When someone makes more we reduce their benefits. Why should we reduce their benefits until they are at least 10% above poverty level? People who really need and should receive benefits, need encouragement to rise above.

OK here is where I am going to poke the bear (Conservatism). Conservatives (like myself) complain that higher taxes on businesses and higher tax rates on wealthy DISINCENTIVISES the wealthy to create more jobs, invest more, etc.

IF THAT IS TRUE, is it also true that punishing poverty level citizens by taking away benefits before they are self-sufficient DISINCENTIVISES them. They can become depressed and despondent at the inability to have a fighting chance. No this does not apply to everyone at or below poverty level, and yes, some succeed without much help. Those people have resilience at or above the levels of others.

Just think about it, it is disingenuous to be against the first and not against the second.

I will be working to decrease my ignorance in all ways in which we structure our systems so that they reinforce our ideals instead of providing real assistance. Now I want to know, how do we change this? How can we dismantle one at a time the practices with which we devalue certain lives?

Be Blessed.