#povertycycle

Another important theme in Shameless is the cycle of temporary success and ongoing dissatisfaction. Even when Frank or the other Gallaghers “win” through a scam or find some short-term stability, it never lasts. Poverty ensures that success feels fleeting, and survival is always temporary. This is relevant to my cultural production because it shows how poverty creates not just financial struggle but emotional exhaustion. Success rarely feels satisfying when the next crisis is already on the horizon. Andrew D. Thrasher writes about this in his article, “Shameless: The Poverty of Sin in the Absence of God”, arguing that Frank’s scams aren’t simply laziness but part of his “habitus”, or the behaviors shaped by the world he was raised in. Thrasher exclaims in the article, “...Shameless has captured aptly the habitus of American poverty. It is marked by systemic poverty and the struggle to survive. It is marked by manipulation of the system, the brokenness of love, and the habitual dispositions of sin” (Thrasher 2021).

In other words, Frank’s constant hustling is a learned survival strategy, not just a character flaw. Thrasher uses this idea of “habitus,” which basically means that people’s choices and behavior are shaped by the world they grow up in. He also says the show makes it clear that when you live in poverty, “right” and “wrong” don’t always matter as much as just surviving. This connects to how Frank and the Gallagher family come up with their own moral rules in order to get by. Thrasher’s perspective is significant because it helps explain why Frank never seems satisfied. He keeps hustling, even when scams work, because the satisfaction of success never outlasts the cycle of poverty. For Frank, right and wrong don’t matter as much as staying alive and keeping his family afloat, at least for another day. In short, the Gallaghers’ search for validation and success shows how poverty creates cycles of survival that never fully end. Shameless makes it clear that poverty is not just about money, it shapes people’s expectations, hopes, and sense of self.

Meet Lawrence. 

Lawrence is a 14-year-old boy living in Uganda. Lawrence desperately wanted to get into school, it was poverty that held him back. Poverty and conflict. And the horrific events that took place one afternoon six years ago.

Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army descended upon his village one day and took his parents, two brothers and sisters into the bush to execute them. His mum survived but she was seriously wounded and can now do very little physical labour.

Unable to earn a living, she had no choice but to pull Lawrence out of school so he could help out. He had to wake up at 6:30am for a back-breaking daily routine of farm work.

It’s a pretty bleak situation for such a bright kid to find himself in.

When we first met Lawrence he told us: “ Without education I have no option but to stay as a farmer. I feel education could brighten my future and I could support my mother fully. But right now it’s not possible.”

Thanks to support from donors to charitable organization War Child, that future is now a real possibility. The donations helped pay for him to go back to school. It’s no exaggeration to say that this education could well transform his whole life. Now he dreams of becoming a teacher.

So thank you if you’ve ever donated to better the lives of these children. The books and uniforms that changed Lawrence’s life only cost about £20. 

Maybe it was yours.

Give more kids like Lawrence the resources and hope to dream of a better future. Show your support hashtagging #therighttolearn, and participate in our upcoming book drive to help kids go back to school. Find out more at trtlcampaign.tumblr.com/events. 

(x) Story taken from warchild.org.uk.

"For liberals looking for ways to combat inequality and poverty, raising the minimum wage would be a good start, but no more." 

The quote above, pulled from an article in The Atlantic (2014) by senior associate editor Jordan Weissmann seems like a tag-line to discourage consideration that a minimum wage hike is meant to be exactly that and nothing more: a good start.

For anyone committed to breaking through the poverty cycle as an outsider, or former participant, that's all that's necessary. A starting point.

In the science of change, an interruption--or starting point--can contribute to conflict de-escalation; in a moment of pause, historical inertia can be assuaged and reconciliation and healing can begin. While these processes are not guaranteed effects of an intervention like a wage hike, it creates an opportunity for other efforts and organizations to facilitate transformative processes within the social and economic fabric of lower income America. 

Conflict transformation and movement toward peacebuilding must be a concerted effort through various levels of social structure and relational dynamics. Weissmann's concern is valid if liberals expect that a wage hike and only a wage hike, will solve all the issues surround economic inequality. If there is a concerted effort toward equality across political, structural and systemic levels in society, the effectiveness of a wage hike multiplies.

As an observation, this is generally the point at which efforts fall apart because there can sometimes be a perception that someone or something else will pick up the slack; organizing such expansive efforts takes too much time, effort and expenditure. There are structural entrenchments and systemic pitfalls that perpetuate pervasive social cycles like poverty. 

What I propose is that more than one starting point is necessary and that the conception of starting point be about the engagement of effort and not the beginning of the timeline associated with the solution. If we move solution-based planning away from project management constructs and look at intersectional processes, I believe that the chance of achieving positive outcomes is increased and the risk of failure is decreased. An example: as the wage hike is enacted, financial education is increased throughout both the public and business sector--possibly extending options for investment in the company as well as sound, long-term financial advice.

Meanwhile, we must also provide education (and maybe even marketing) that debunks certain assumptions surrounding lower-income lifestyles: "they" will waste their money, "they" don't know what to do with money like "we" do, and so on. As these outside issues are addressed, likely in difficult conversation, dislodging the binary us versus them paradigm, pauses adversarial inertia. Another starting point.