Perspectives from Black Poverty

You might question if my successes have changed the uncertainty that I grew up with on my shoulders. The answer is no. Poverty is the hardest class to be in. Out of all misfortunes and racial injustice, my people and I experience, adding poverty is just pounds of salt poured in a gaping wound. To quote Jaden smith in Karate Kid, "I hate it here." Surviving poverty while black is not what I signed up for when I came out of the womb in 1994. In truth, poverty is a chronic issue in our society. It just so happens to be that the most impoverished are minorities. Most people experience poverty adjacently, either seeing people asking for financial relief or donations, in a news headline, or merely another statistic to review in school. I'm going to show you what poverty feels like, what it looks like, and how it changes your thinking. I don't share these things to make anyone pity me, but I hope it offers perspective on an economic crisis that afflicts many people like me. If you can sit through this experience, and for a moment step outside of your norm, I pray you hold a different amount of empathy or activism for the future.

[ALT TEXT] - Image description: White notification pop-up message saying “Reminder: Minority racial groups are more likely to experience multidimensional poverty than their White counterparts”.

Waking up Poor:

I was homeless for four years. Losing the home, I grew up in is not something I will easily forget. As the oldest, I had to process this change rather quickly. I was at the end of my high school career, and the world kind of shattered a year before I graduated. I miss the old house, more than I let on. My mom is and will always be a strong woman for creating an environment for five brilliant but vastly different minds to thrive in. I now understand how devastated she must have felt at that time, and how reclaiming her own space was necessary.

Uncertainty holds you tightly in poverty. Will I be able to eat today? Will I be able to clean today? Will I be able to make it to work on time? Will I get to school? Will I be able to complete these assignments? Will the lights stay on? Will the water still run? Questions that most people don't have to ask every single day. Problems that grow as the seasons change. Everything normal becomes a question. You have to figure out what you're willing to sacrifice. If I pay one bill, then I cut back on eating for a week. If I get groceries, the power will be out. If I can't do homework, then my grade drops. The extreme cause and effect push you into survival mode. It's draining, to question everything because not one aspect of your life is stable. Not a single action is completed without sacrificing something else.

Uncertainty rings your alarm as you wake up. Uncertainty sings you a lullaby as you lay down to sleep. 

How about Working Poor:

Things changed from "poor kid" to "working poor" as soon as I was able-bodied (a relative term for me at least) and out in the workforce. There wasn't time to dream about idealistic futures when tomorrow brought new challenges. The gamble of sacrifice was guaranteed. Living paycheck to paycheck, yet barely getting by, became standard. It gets to the point that survivorship is a standard. It inspires your way of thinking.

I pushed to do more, despite my financial circumstances. Alternative fashion quickly became a way for me to reclaim my life beyond surviving. It allowed me purpose. However, the habits of surviving don't go away just because I have a pretty pink wig on. Despite working full-time and double the time, everything that branches out of adulthood and stability is limbo. I excessively worry about if I present an impoverished state. I obsess over a culture of stability and financial excess. My anger pulls me away from seeking support. My grief held me as I slept each night. 

[ALT TEXT] - Image description: Black and White film edit showing Jadedisland looking at the distance while holding an open journal with a pen in her hand.

Working poor revealed how hard it was for one person to take care of five by herself. It showed me how pride is a foolish trait in poverty. It also taught me how much I will put up with to gain some semblance of stability. Ridicule, judgment, sneers, and disdain came from people in the church, the business world, and extended family.

Accessibility became the secondary demon next to uncertainty. What do you have access to that allows you to get through the various steps in the day? Did penny-pinching mean you had soap to wash with today? Is the water on? Better are the lights on for you to get dressed to go to work? How about getting to work? Do you have money to rideshare or even take the bus? Are you walking? A series of questions remind you how much you have access to and can count on in the day. Sometimes there is wealth inaccessibility for us working poor. Today I had the internet, but was I able to apply to a job? I took a credit card out to get a tablet to work on. These things are circling accessibility and luxury. It's not always an everyday blessing for those in the working poor. You'll find that a lot of things are luxuries when you work from dawn till dusk to manage one bill.

Side hustles, secondary jobs, and government assistance. Is it enough? In a household of six, at a minimum wage paying rent takes 4 of us, the answer is no. Groceries and other things become a luxury. Why do we live like that? Why is accessibility a hurdle in our world? We made a sacrifice, one that is shared amongst the workforce aged people in my house to avoid losing a home yet again. Everything in my twenties was to keep the house and get through school. Everything was to survive and make sure the next day I woke up safely. Yet it's still not enough. 

It's Not Enough, Yet I'm Still Here

[ALT TEXT] - Image description: Quote reading, “The habits of surviving don’t go away just because I have a pretty pink wig on”

Poverty is a steadfast muse for my quiet rage and intense grief. I hold back from conversations about it, I rarely mention when I was homeless, and push beyond my means to make my dreams come true. How do I grapple with all of the torrid affairs in poverty and call myself an alternative fashion writer? It's a lifestyle of excess and a community that continually feels out of my reach because it seems luxurious. Yet I'm still here reclaiming a bit of art for myself and a way of life that's more than surviving my twenties. I know how perception works with social media influence and alternative fashion. I'm no stranger to putting on a smile, but enough is enough. I think people must understand how not everyone has access to the world and resources that many do in the community. Consider my story a chance to understand that some of us in the community are fighting an uphill battle and still want to claim a bit of fashion to make us feel more human. 

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