CHARLES Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and he could easily have been writing about Charlottesville. While students at the University enjoy the best of times, thousands of impoverished workers struggle to maintain a living during the worst of times. The poor in Charlottesville fall victim to an ideology that alienates and dehumanizes them, in addition to economic policy that sustains their destitution.
Joe Szakos, executive director of the Virginia Organizing Project, calls this dichotomy "The Myth of Charlottesville." He explains that part of the culture around Charlottesville includes the mantra that "everything is just fine," which, according to Szakos, couldn't be farther from truth.
CNN calls Charlottesville "one of the best place to live in the United States" -- and rightfully so. The country clubs are delightful, I hear.
CNN neglected to mention, however, that one in four Charlottesville workers earn less than poverty wages. That is, they earn less than an abysmal $18,000 a year. According to the VOP, lower-income workers in Virginia face the fourth-harshest state taxes on low-income workers in the nation.
It seems contradictory then, that these facts could describe the same city -- a bucolic oasis plagued by endemic poverty yet blessed by a happening nightlife.
How can the best place to live for young professionals simultaneously be the worst place for a vast population of working poor? Or a better question: How can we fix this situation?
An arrogant and foolish columnist might propose a remedy for poverty in 700 words, but perhaps this column would be better served examining the ideology of Charlottesville and how it subtly embraces poverty as a part of the American dream -- the part for those who are perceived as just not trying hard enough.
Diligently ascending the socio-economic ladder, workers are encouraged to ignore the rung on which they currently find themselves (and all previous steps) -- always keeping their eye on the next socio-economic foothold. According to a Times-CNN news poll, 19 percent of Americans believe that they are among the top one percent of wage earners, and 20 percent more believed that they could achieve that status in their lifetime. This illusory optimism internalizes the "American dream" -- alienating other socio-economic groups as an unforeseen consequence.
Similar sentiment is precisely why members of the Charlottesville community (and the community as an entity itself) are pressed to ignore the circumstances that surround and serve them, both literally and figuratively. On disregarding the reality of poverty, Szakos suggests, "We ultimately need to humanize these people. For many, these people don't have to be real at all."
Individuals generally have trouble mustering sympathy for the plight of others if they view it as self-inflicted or as somehow the fault of the suffering. After all, you know what Darwin said about the "fittest."
This seemingly cruel sentiment toward poverty is not plainly evil; in fact, it would not be so merciless if all workers were born with the same economic circumstances, like Monopoly. In the game of Monopoly, everyone starts out with the same amount of cash and savvy competition primarily dictates who dwells on Park Place and who is forced to repair crack dens on Baltic Avenue.
An example of an attempt to redistribute wealth, the ongoing living wage campaign seeks to restore a semblance of fairness to the proverbial game of Monopoly by paying University wage laborers enough to bring a full-time worker out of poverty. While a living wage is morally and economically essential in the current situation, it would do very little to alter the attitudes that permeate the community.
A highly stratified community, a la Charlottesville, is not any less so because the working poor are able to sustain their impoverished existence. Even if the living wage campaign succeeds (which it most certainly should), the economic and ideological status quo will endure -- the phenomenon that permitted the situation in the first place.
The living wage campaign is a vital step toward alleviating the crushing yoke of extreme poverty, but raising wages is merely palliative care. The true disease of poverty feeds off the torpor and timidity of its neighbors.
When attitudes toward poverty change, effective policies will undoubtedly follow.
Dan Keyserling's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at dkeyserling@cavalierdaily.com.
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