Who can tell me sth about the American Dream

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by jaguar

, nor my socioeconomic status, which could best be described as 'complicated'. I've been rich and I've been poor but it's a trend with statistical proof, not a snobby observation.

My limited understanding is that those who tend to romanticize the "poor" (however you define it) often have never dealt with them in any meaningful way. I don't know anything about you, save a few remarks you've made, but my myopic eyes were opened a tad after I started actually WORKING with the poor, sick and downtrodden. I've been in a few situations I wanted right out of...I'm not proud of that, but I found I could not be effective in those particular instances. Have you ever been to a home where there were dog feces and cockroaches all over the floor, countertop, bedspread, and cooking area? To my middle-class eyes those things were intolerable...to those who lived there it was normal. How to help? I wanted them to clean up and they thought I was a "college-educated" butt-insky sent by the State. What would you have done? (I realize I am off topic, sorry, but really, what would you do??? I had to scour myself every night to be sure I hadn't brought cockroach's into my home)---I apologize, in advance, for my middle-class bullshit.

You are correct when you ask what this has to do with anything--I am muddling my meaning which is this: you kind of come off as a snob, Jag, whether you are one or not. The first credo in working with the poor, sick and downtrodden is to be as one of them. That has been my experience and I've been doing it for 20 years. They've not much patience for "idea's"--that's all I mean.