#pov

This time of year," she said, "people’s consciences gnaw at them. They give away truckloads of canned goods and quote Dickens and wring their hands over the ‘less fortunate.’" We boarded the Metro and took seats perpendicular to each other. "But God forbid anyone should address why they’re poor in the first place, or try to change the structures that keep them poor. Then the ‘less fortunate’ turn into ‘welfare queens’ and ‘derelicts.’ But if I were a lobbyist whoring on behalf of some transnational corporation, I’d never hear the word ‘derelict.’" "So when it comes to taking care of poor people," I said, "if Mother Teresa is the Hallmark card, then you’re the electric bill. ↗

— Jeri Smith-Ready

#change

You can't change things. That's life. Poor stays poor, rich says rich, and those two, they will never meet. ↗

— Antonia Michaelis

#change

The walls around the hood keep the people on the inside from the changes on the outside. ↗

— Darnell Lamont Walker

#poverty #walls #change

I died last night. Seventy years too young. ↗

— Colin Thompson

#early-death #famine #global #ignorance #niger

Economists are coming to acknowledge that measures of national wealth and poverty in terms strictly of average income tell you little that is significant of the health or viability of a society. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#average #coming #economists #health #income

So why is a third of our world battling obesity and spending huge sums to burn off excess calories, while the other two-thirds yearn to get more of them? ↗

— Wess Stafford

#diet #excercise #hunger #obesity #poverty

When a destitute mother starts earning an income, her dreams of success invariably center around her children. A woman's second priority is the household. She wants to buy utensils, build a stronger roof, or find a bed for herself and her family. A man has an entirely different set of priorities. When a destitute father earns extra income, he focuses more attention on himself. Thus money entering a household through a woman brings more benefits to the family as a whole. ↗

— Muhammad Yunus

#poverty #dreams

Royce Westmoreland stared at him with biting scorn. "I despise hypocrisy, particularly when it is coated with holiness." "May I ask for a specific example?" "Fat priests," Royce replied, "with fat purses, who lecture staving peasants on the dangers of gluttony and the merits of poverty. ↗

— Judith McNaught

#hypocrisy #poverty #dreams

God's Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth. Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God's people at all—no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals nor how orthodox are their creeds and confessions. ↗

— Ronald J. Sider

#confession #creeds #god-s-word #neglect #oppression

There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before. ↗

— Jonathan Kozol

#education #government #poverty #standardized-tests #education