“You Don’t Need That”: Privilege and the Holiday Season
David J. Leonard and Anna Chow | NewBlackMan
Last Sunday, we sat down to watch 60 Minutes. While often informative, this particular episode profoundly impacted us. In, “Hard times generation: homeless kids,” Scott Pelley tells the story of several families struggling in the face of poverty and homelessness. In the shadows of Disney World, the self-described “happiest place on earth,” a generation of kids is growing up as “America’s motel generation.” Schools buses routinely pick up dozens of children at area motels; others are not so “lucky,” living in the back of trucks or in the family car. 60 Minutes featured Arielle and Austin Metzger, getting ready for school in area gas stations, doing homework as the car drives around at night, and sleeping in the back of a truck in various spots in town. Scott Maxwell, in “Poverty lurks in the shadows of Fantasyland,” describes the devastation in Central Florida in the following way:
The stories are everywhere. They always have been.
This is Orlando's reality. And it's far more complicated — and widespread — than the downtown panhandlers who get the most attention.
On Sunday night — when "60 Minutes" aired its second segment on the plight of homeless children in our own backyard — 295 children slept at the coalition's shelter.
The average age was 8.
The number of kids is nearly 20 percent higher than the year before.
It is what the coalition's director, Brent Trotter, defines as Central Florida's "new normal."
"It's like a tsunami," Trotter said of the lengthy recession. "It just keeps coming."
60 Minutes describes the situation as follows:
We all hear about the recovery - that the recession ended in 2009 - but some things are getting worse before they get better. And child poverty is one of them.
America's motel generation is growing fast.
Like the kids who came out of the Great Depression, this generation is being shaped by homelessness and hunger but also by memories of neighbors who opened their homes, and of families that refused to be broken.
While hit particularly hard, the problems of homelessness and poverty are a national epidemic with almost 25% of children living below the poverty line and 1.5 million children homeless. From Coast to Coast, the 1% has left behind America’s children, particularly kids of color. In Oregon, almost 50% of the state’s 20,000 black children live below the poverty line; 41% of Native kids and 35% Latino children face similar devastation. In other words, a large portion of black, Latino and Native Oregon kids “live on less than $430 a week for a family of four.” According to the National Center for Children and Poverty, 1:3 black children live in poverty; in those states with the largest population of black children, poverty rates extend from 28% in California to 48% in Ohio.
Listening to the circumstances facing children in Florida, knowing that there are kids throughout America living under similar conditions, hit home, pushing us to do something. Worse yet, Newt Gingrich’s recent comments and the troubling displays of consumerism visible on “Black Friday,” reminded us of the importance of practicing what we preached: the importance of people over commodities.
For several weeks, we have talked and debated about how we should celebrate the holiday season and more precisely what role gifts, shopping, and consumerism should play for us as a family. Concerned about the burgeoning obsession amongst our kids to consume for the sake of consumption, we struggled to find a way to convey these messages to our children in face of the commercialization of childhood.
Having already talked to our kids about only receiving a few presents this holiday season, the 60 Minutes episode provided us with a teachable moment in our family. After watching the segment with our 7.5 year-old daughter and 4 year-old son, we talked to them about their own privileges, reminding them why we would be limiting presents this year. Our son, who responded to the sight of homelessness and poverty by lamenting “the bad news” was unfazed by the prospect of receiving a few less presents. Our daughter, on the other hand, clearly felt cheated, bemoaning the fact that we were not getting her a bunch of stuff. Seeing kids her own age without homes and struggling to find food did not eliminate her disappointment, but it has gone a long way to explaining why we have made this decision.
Our kids won’t be deprived but instead of giving them many gifts, and instead exchanging gifts with other members of the family, we have decided to donate that money to an organization working with families in Florida. We have asked most of the members of our extended family to withhold presents and instead to use that money to help someone else. While seemingly an easy request, the prospect of disappointed children (our kids, nieces and nephews, cousins) also tears at us. The last thing any parent wants is to disappoint their children, yet we hope our kids will realize that the disappointment in no ways compares to the problem of homelessness and living in poverty. If this is the most disappointing moment in their lives, they are blessed beyond belief. Our hope is that they will realize how lucky they are and that the holidays should be about family not consumption. As parents we have long struggled to balance our values, knowledge, and the materialistic impulse of our children (as well as our own).
We encourage you to use this holiday season (and better yet, everyday in the future) to reflect about the many privileges that we all enjoy and to consume a bit less for yourselves and give a bit more to the people in need. If you are interested in working with your children about giving to the needy this holiday, we offer a few tips (although we are not experts here):
· After watching the 60 Minutes segment you can:
1. Ask your kids to name a few things s/he would like to receive for the holidays and discuss what would happen if they didn’t receive them (nothing).
2. Ask your kids to name items that are necessary/essential for day to day living vs. desirable/want items and discuss the differences between these two categories.
3. Discuss the importance of family and effects of poverty on family structure.
4. Play a game of Monopoly and take their money away after 20 minutes and discuss the effects.
5. Donate, donate, donate—give away clothes/toys, donate money to organizations, volunteer time at shelters, etc.
***
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.
Anna Chow is the mother of two loving, intelligent, and at times, challenging children. She currently works at Washington State University as an Academic Advisor for the College of Liberal Arts.
