Several Sundays ago our pastor was talking about helping the poor.  He referred to those who complain about the poor taking advantage of the system and being lazy, and then he said, “If you think that most of the poor people are like that, you don’t know enough poor people.”  The statement stayed in my mind.  In order to make judgments on a group of people, whether it’s an economic group, racial group, religious group, or any other,   we have to know many people who fit into that group.  In research we call it a “sampling.”  To have validity, the sampling must be large enough to make assumptions about the group as a whole. 

The truth is, however, that we often come to conclusions about a group of people after observing only one or two people in that group.  I was listening to a conversation at a conference this weekend in which a lady was saying that when she was eight years old, she had gone to New York with her mother.  She had found a gift for her father and she had just enough money to buy the gift.  While she was waiting to pay, she dropped a quarter and a man stepped on the quarter and would not move.  She said that he said, “Welcome to New York, little girl!”  She said, “I know now that not all New Yorkers are like that man, but I still don’t like New York.”  When thinking of the poor and the homeless, we must often overcome the stereotypes that  have been created either by us or by someone else before we can decide what our response  should be to the “least of these.” I am now reading a new book by Silas House called Same Sun Here in which a girl from India living in New York is a pen pal to a boy from Eastern Kentucky.  He writes to the girl, “I have never met anybody from New York City before.  I’ve always heard that people from up there are real rude and will not hold the door for you, and you’ll get mugged if you walk down the street.  Is this true?  My mamaw says it is probably a stereotype, which I looked up in the dictionary and it means, ‘an oversimplified opinion.’”  Later in the book he says that some think that people from Eastern Kentucky are “stupid hillbillies.”  He is fortunate that he has adults around him who understand about stereotypes and he also experiences first-hand how making these kinds of judgments can hurt people. 

After getting to know many people who have economic problems, we generally realize that they are all different.  With some of them we sympathize  greatly, and with others we become impatient and want them to do their part to solve their problems.  In an earlier blog I mentioned that the best way to help people is to establish a relationship with them and learn what is really going on in their lives.  When we do this, we will be able to make wise decisions about how to help.  I remember when I was a teenager my mother volunteered to keep a fourteen-month old girl while her mother was in the hospital having her third child. My sister and I loved having the baby there.  We bought her some clothes and played with her almost like a doll.  After the mother went home from the hospital, days went by and they did not come to get the little girl. That suited my sister and me fine, but my mother said no.  She understood that we would all become very attached to the child. But my mother knew that eventually, when it suited them, the  parents would come for her.  So she packed her up and took her home to her family.  She made the right decision of course, but we were not old enough to understand what was needed in this situation.

I have observed that there are a few in every economic class of people who will take advantage of the system and will not work hard to do their part.  If they are in a family that has much money, they’ll take advantage of parents, brothers, and sisters.  If their family has limited resources, they may let co-workers or friends do their part or pay their way, and if they have none of these options, they’ll take what they can from the government with or without working for it.  However, in most cases, I think that people would rather work for what they get and they feel better about themselves when they do so.  When I talk to those who receive food at our “Meals and More” program, most of them seem extremely thankful to get the food and many of them would obviously rather be able to buy their own food.   Some of them are working and trying to make ends meet on what they make.  I often hear others talking about efforts they have made to find work or leads they have about jobs.  As far as any judgment that I could make about this segment of the population as a whole, I just don’t see that they’re that different from any other—except that they seem hungry enough to stand out in the rain and cold for a while to get a little bag with a few sandwiches in it.