The cultural appropriation cops have caught you.
Yeah, you think you’re all cool with your adorable $30,000 tiny house on wheels and your dumpster diving, don’t you? But we who once lived in a trailer and ate a cheese-product sandwich know who you are.
The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation
It’s likely, from where I sit, that this back-to-nature and boxed-up simplicity is not being marketed to people like me, who come from simplicity and heightened knowledge of poverty, but to people who have not wanted for creature comforts. For them to try on, glamorize, identify with.
Yeah, it clearly is. So?
This lady July Westhale comes quickly to her point, but rather struggles to make it…
[I]t’s not just the Tiny House Movement that incites my discontent. From dumpster diving to trailer-themed bars to haute cuisine in the form of poor-household staples, it’s become trendy for those with money to appropriate the poverty lifestyle—and it troubles me for one simple reason. Choice.
Yes, yes. Look, kid, I’ve been hungry and I’ve been full. Full is better. And there’s nothing particularly extra-respectable about hungry.
But she’s trying to have it all ways. She can’t quite bring herself to condemn the Tiny Housers, because carbon footprints and sustainability this or that. (Though she does take some shots at ‘Hipster Cuisine’ that are probably well-deserved) And there’s nothing the least bit new about shabby chic. But what about Cultural Appropriation? Haven’t we decided that’s bad? And lots of people who live in tiny trailers are really truly poor, which means they’re authentic and you ‘tiny house movement’ poseurs aren’t! Appropriation! And there’s something in there about how hard it is to be gay, I didn’t really follow that.
She says at one point, with some genuine truth,
There is nothing simple about being poor.
I can’t argue with that. But this lady makes being rich a lot more complicated than it seems like it needs to be.
“There is nothing simple about being poor.” That is so true! Being poor is a constant juggling act.
Also (strange as it may seem) being poor can be very expensive. I can give you a long list of things that truly poor people pay more for than the average consumer. One of the first things to come to mind is any financial product or service. Just go to any check cashing store and watch the poor people line up to PAY GOOD MONEY just to cash their already-insufficient paychecks. And don’t even talk to me about payday loans!
Appropriation? Is that the bugaboo of the day?
I guess I will just go out and appropriate somebody. Just because I can.
People really ought to empty their minds of nonsense before they open their mouths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
Rich people can afford to live simply. 100 possessions or something. Poor people need backups. Redundancy. Cheap crap can fail, and we need a plan “B” or “C” to ensure that we can keep on keepin’ on in hard times. Come a time it is just me vs. the roaches, my hammer will outlast their on-call exterminators.