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We Hate the Poor

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ARTICLE: http://articles.philly.com/2013-08-05/news/41096922_1_west-philadelphia-neuroimaging-psychology

You know what's worse than sexism and racism combined? Class-ism. Don't believe me? Check out this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer written by Alfred Lubrano this week. Click the link below if you would indulge me.

His story centers on the scientific fact that Americans hate poor people. This fact is based on a nuero-imaging study at Princeton University. When people were shown pictures of the homeless their brain patterns reacted as if they were repulsed and saw the poor people in the pictures as things and not people.

Yet I'm not at all surprised. I believe most of us do hate the poor because being poor is everything we don't want to be. It's our worst nightmare.

Our hate of the poor is one of the most misguided and self-defeating attitudes in our society. Unsurprisingly, most of our nation's problems are rooted in the fact that we refuse to address the needs of the poor yet we remain delusional in our thinking not accepting the fact that to help the poor is to help ourselves.

The fact is most of us are only a paycheck away from eviction or a credit decline away from delinquency.

Deep down inside you know that all of your supposed hard work is not impervious to misfortune. Unemployment, sickness, death, depression are all formidable foes to all of your "hard work" so it makes no sense for you or anyone else to talk down on the underclass that you might join tomorrow if life feels like giving you a nice kick in the ass.

Truth be told; to love the poor is to love yourself and to hate the poor is to hate yourself.

Why: because the poor are a reflection of you and I without the social safety net.

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