It's A Privilege

Privilege of Poverty (Part 1 of 3): Collision of Wealth and Poverty w/ Jim Ott

• Jason Browne • Season 1 • Episode 11

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What happens when the worlds of privilege and poverty collide?

In this illuminating episode of "It's a Privilege," host Jason Browne is joined by co-hosts Dawn Rosenbaum, a non-binary healthcare professional and improv director, and Brandon Rhodes, a gamer, improviser, and DEI director at Happy Valley Improv, to delve deep into the intricate relationship between poverty and privilege.

Our special guest is Jim Ott, a seasoned school psychologist with over 35 years of experience who leads community workshops called Bridges Out of Poverty. Jim shares his transformative journey from growing up comfortably in a predominantly white town in Michigan to experiencing life as an outsider during his teenage years in Brazil. His stories shed light on how privilege can be invisible to those who have it and how experiencing "otherness" can profoundly reshape one's understanding of social dynamics.

Learn more about Bridges Out of Poverty here: https://www.ahaprocess.com/

In this episode, we explore:

  • Personal Narratives on Poverty
  • The Invisible Nature of Privilege
  • Stigma and Self-Treating
  • Dignity in Support Services
  • Leveraging Privilege for Positive Change

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges common perceptions and invites listeners to reflect on their own experiences and biases. Discover how understanding the complexities of poverty and privilege can lead to more empathetic interactions and contribute to a more equitable society.

Tune in to gain fresh perspectives, engage with heartfelt stories, and learn how to use your own privileges for the greater good.

Available now on all major podcast platforms and in video on Spotify and YouTube.

For more information about the host, go to www.thejasonbrowne.com
Check out the TEDx talk here: TEDx Possibilities of Privilege
Thanks you for being a part of the conversation.

Jason Browne:

Welcome to It's a Privilege podcast, where we explore the possibilities of our privilege. This is part one on the privilege as it relates to poverty. On today's episode, our special guest is Jim Ott. He's a school psychologist of 35 years and provides community organizational workshops called Bridges Out of Poverty to help build effective poverty intervention efforts for the community. I also have the privilege of having two wonderful co hosts, Dawn Rosenbaum, a non binary healthcare professional and improv director, and Brandon Rhodes, a gamer, improviser, and DEI director at Happy Valley Improv. What can you expect in this episode? First, our crew is going to chat and explore privilege as it relates to poverty. And then we'll get into the privilege perspective with Jim Ott and hear a story about how poverty and privilege has impacted his life. To get us started, let's check in on our own privilege. Okay, Brandon. Okay, Don. What is one privilege that you are feeling today?

Dawn:

I got the privilege of a car today. So, I had a lot of appointments and things I wanted to do today, and I did not want to have to say no to any of them. So, what did I do? Today, I decided to, drive myself to all the different places, and I had it stacked so perfectly, so I felt very privileged to be able to get myself from A to B in a very efficient, I ain't gotta wait for nobody, level. So that I could go do all the things today. So that's what I'm feeling.

Jason Browne:

Alright, Brandon. What about you? What's one privilege you're feeling today?

Brandon Rhodes:

I hope I haven't used this before, but last night. I got in super late. and I went to

Jason Browne:

Went to bed.

Brandon Rhodes:

I went to bed, I went to bed, and I woke up at seven o'clock and I was like, I need more hours to sleep. So I just texted my manager and said, Hey, I'm going to come in two hours later, mark this as personal time. And I did that. I went back to sleep, woke up and went in and told him about my night and how awesome it was and got back to work. And I'm glad I had that privilege to do that.

Jason Browne:

And for me, what privilege do I have? I have the privilege of hanging out with these two wonderful guests. And of course you and I get to say that because I am the host on that note, let's dig into it. what are your thoughts on poverty as it relates to yourself or maybe as it relates to privilege?

Brandon Rhodes:

I can understand the ability to not be aware of poverty. I grew up in, you would say, in poverty. My family had to use food stamps and, a program called WIC, which I think is nationwide. But now that I'm older, and I'm on my own two feet, and I have a semi decent pay, I can see how I'm kind of blinded to today's poverty.

Dawn:

when I think poverty, I think of the juxtaposition of being a poor person in America. I was also raised on food stamps and WIC. my parents were foster parents, so the money was stretched thin, although we still had the Benefits of health insurance, all that stuff. But then the juxtaposition of being poor in America, where overall we have more resources than other places in the world. So it's interesting to be both. One of the richest people and also one of the not richest people and what that means.

Jason Browne:

So, I'm the odd one out here. my parents allowed me to grow up in a non poverished house. I would say in comparison to the stories that you just told, My family did not have to worry about food stamps the environments that my parents actually grew up in is a different story. However, what my parents provided for me was not in that case. and it was one of those things I started off in a private Catholic school and then I went to public school and that shift of having a greater exposure to the breath of, the haves or the have nots or the folks with money and the folks without the lifestyle differences that exist as a result of that. That's when I began to really begin to see that when I was younger, I caught glimpses of it through church and other things, but it wasn't until I really got into public school that I was like, no, you lived a pretty good life so far. And here are the things that other people have to go through. So that's my difference of a background in this particular case. So as it relates to privilege, you kind of laid the foundation of how your families were growing up. Did you notice that as a kid or how does that impact you now looking back?

Brandon Rhodes:

Back where I'm from. we had a garden that the community would, chip in and grow and produce things. we had food banks that people would volunteer to, and people would, go and get food from. So I feel like when there's poverty, there's, a way to remedy that by just helping each other out in a community. that's the thing for me. When I grew up in a impoverished situation, my whole community was in a impoverished situation. I've looked back, recently, at the amount of Uh, houses cost in my neighborhood where I grew up, in comparison to houses on the other side of town and they're drastically lower. So, it's just acknowledging that we lived in a more impoverished area is just kind of, uh, takes me back. I'm like, oh, we weren't the only ones. our whole neighborhood was like that.

Dawn:

My parents worked really hard to not have me know that I was as poor as we were, we'll put it that way. We didn't really talk about money a lot. I did hear no a lot. I knew that I was different than other kids because they would talk about playdates and other things and I was like, what is this? Like, I don't know what that is. I feel like my parents did everything they could to sort of make things work. we were in what you would call a donut hole where when my parents made more money, we would get out of those programs and therefore not have those programs. then we would not have the money to be able to afford those things. So then it was that terrible thing where if you went out of the system, then you couldn't afford anything. And so you had to go back into the system in order to be able to eat and feed your family and whatnot. it is such a prominent thing for me, though, that when I went to, Choose my career path. I genuinely was like, well, this is super fun for me. This I have a passion for, but, I need to be able to feed my family. So I chose my career path, knowing that one ensured I'd be able to plan to have a family because it was very, very, it was instilled in me in a very young age that I needed to be able to make a certain amount of money so that I could provide for my family and do those things.

Brandon Rhodes:

I agree with you, Dawn, that, my education was definitely based on, the jobs that I could get, that would, help me feed a family.

Jason Browne:

is there anything else that you've chosen to do as an adult that was really shaped or, uh, food? What do you mean by food, food,

Dawn:

food, food, so when you're going up poor your, your accessibility to food, fresh food, healthy food, super low, you get really strong opinions like, which hamburger helper is best. are SpaghettiOs really made of magic sauce? Why are they different O's? You know, very, very critical things. I feel like we all develop our first love of ramen because of, of sometimes when we grow up.

Brandon Rhodes:

my family.

Dawn:

but like when I got older, I went actually, when I was in college, I had a moment where I realized I didn't need to finish my plate. which was a very strong rule in our house. You did not waste things. And so because of that, I could actually taste my food. I'm not kidding. This is a real thing. And my partner actually had same experience. and we, when I started to taste my food. I was like, Oh, wow, I think I like some of the things that I think I don't like other things. I got really fascinated by textures of food. And because I was being served by a campus college, I had access to food that I didn't really cook at home or even know about at home. So then I started getting really into food. And then from that moment on, I became a very passionate. Food enthusiast. And even to this day, when I cook, that entire thing just opened up and it wouldn't have had, I always had these things. I have people in my life who are children of chefs at highly rated restaurants, and they grow up having access to this food and having access to all this money. And when we talk about the food, they're not as passionate about it because it is something they always had. And so not having that access easily with food. I'm super passionate because I didn't have the access. I didn't have the exposure. And then when I was able to, it was so enlightening to me that I dove in

Jason Browne:

when growing up, my parents were very financially conservative. So like, while my family never had to be on food stamps or anything like that. and we had a house over our head. my dad did everything he could to make sure that no dollar or cent was spent elsewhere, so like if my dad took us to the movies, for instance, he would just be like, you're going to the movies. We don't do this often, but you ain't getting anything. There's no, there's no drinks. There's no food. You just go to the movies and we're coming back home. Right? That that's the thing that would happen as an adult. I find myself anytime that I go to the movies, I got a big bag of popcorn.

Brandon Rhodes:

ha ha ha

Jason Browne:

Every single time I load that thing, I will butter and ate the entire thing. So I can relate to this in a very, I guess, privileged sense of being like, I have experiences that I was not, I was not allowed to have as a kid because my parents were trying to be strapped. But is there anything else from your side that Brandon, that you, you had?

Brandon Rhodes:

I, um,

Jason Browne:

And it doesn't have to be food related. Cause I connected with Dawn on the food scale, but it

Dawn:

I do, I feel sad that your parents never snuck you in popcorn.'cause like we weren't allowed to have popcorn either, but that doesn't mean we didn't have it. We snuck it in

Brandon Rhodes:

That's what purses are

Dawn:

That's why we always went to the movies in the wintertime. Not only because people were like, isn't that the best time for movies? But yeah,

Brandon Rhodes:

Oh man.

Jason Browne:

parents never did that.

Brandon Rhodes:

Thinking about purses,

Jason Browne:

Yeah, I guess.

Brandon Rhodes:

thinking about purses, we would come out of like buffets and stuff with like two or three extra meals. thinking about what you said, as far as movies are concerned, I feel like there are a lot of instances where my parents gave me the option of treating myself.

Jason Browne:

Really?

Brandon Rhodes:

Yeah, like I did go to the movies and I could get a candy. I feel like everything was so strapped. That I feel like they did give us the option Like we didn't get the biggest popcorn, but we did get popcorn. it wasn't like all the candies, but we did get like our selection of a candy, you know? and there were many instances like that growing up where, it's hamburger helper and a Friday sandwich Monday through Friday. And then Saturday in the morning, you can go to the matinee and you can, get it since it's cheap, you can get yourself a candy with it, or here's 5 worth of quarters or stuff like that. Just small things that we did every now and then that, I'm noticing now it was like a treat, because we really didn't have it.

Dawn:

I feel like a lot of the quality time I had with my family, my mother tried to go over the top to make sure that the experience we had was the experience that other people had. Like, it was a big deal that all my friends were doing like summer camps and things like that. So my mom had me volunteer for an art program and a theater program, because at least I was doing summer camps. I was the one assisting the teacher in the summer camp. I wasn't performing in the summer camp, but I would get it. Theatrical experience I would, I would get, I would be there when the, the lessons were happening so that I could at least gain the knowledge. And then later I could participate, say, you know, in high school theater kind of thing. So she worked very hard to find those work arounds. it did help. That my sister is 15 years older than me. And so if you think about the experience of you being eight with your sibling being up there in their early twenties, now she's getting extra income. And so there was times where she would take us out for special spoilings. It was always something mom didn't want, like ears piercings or something like that, but still that was how we, got our like special thing.

Jason Browne:

So one of the things that I hear often when it comes to this idea of having money or not having money, Is this idea of there's a certain criticism that people get for treating themselves. So like growing up, friends would say why does this family not have money, but they have the new Jordan

Dawn:

Why

Jason Browne:

on? why are they on welfare? But they're able to get a cell phone and all these other things like the latest iPhone, as an example, like there's that criticism that I've heard often in various capacities growing up, but it also sounds like those might be opportunities to have glimpses of normality, whatever that means from society. So what are your thoughts on that? That dynamic, where does that fall?

Dawn:

so one of the things I love that you said this because now that I'm thinking about it, my mom treated herself a lot and in the capacity of, what she would do is she would go to goodwill. And so we had a lot of that was.

Brandon Rhodes:

Oh, yeah.

Dawn:

Oh, this is a really cute TV tray cart thing, but the one leg doesn't work and it's duct taped together. she would find these treasures at Goodwill and we would make it work, but it would be stuff that she would remind us was valued she felt this elation for finding a thing that allowed us to sort of, like, we spent money on something that she then bought and the overall money she spent was low, but the value of the thing was almost like we were keeping up with the Joneses What you had described to me is a thing that, especially when we talk about empathy is there's this prejudice of a perceived level of suffering. People expect when you are impoverished, poor, et cetera. And so what you're describing is this like, I wouldn't even call it shame for self treating. I would call it this idea of, if you are poor, you must also suffer. Like that's what poor is. My friend, she cuts hair and one of the things she did in a program for her, city, she lives in Boston, was she would offer people who were homeless, a haircut before they would, go to different places, whether it be, to see people or to do jobs or things like that. And there was a person who always talked about how they would never, they never wanted the haircut because people didn't give money to you when you looked good. There was an expected level of need that came with this expected level of disheveled and impoverished and suffering. And if you Looked like you just had a bad day versus if you looked like life really, really was harsh to you. People were more likely to give you money. And so it was a humbling experience. And I think it goes To this exact thing that you were talking about how. Yeah, I think we got shamed for self treating because my family. Has a very conservative religious background and so shame is and guilt is kind of part of the game, right?

Brandon Rhodes:

Yeah. I

Dawn:

But outside of that, I think what you're talking about is this perceived level of you must be poor, therefore you must be unhappy. How can you call yourself poor when you have these things? And it's like, well, you don't know if they just spent the if they put away You know, if they put away a little bit of money every month for the last 2 years. And so, yeah, they were able to buy this brand new iPhone on sale because they were running a Black Friday sale. So they were like, holy crap. It's now this. Sure. I have to sign up for a 3 year contract at a monthly rate. I can barely afford. And if this, if this thing breaks, there's no way I can afford the insurance to put to bring it back. Is that really any less valid?

Brandon Rhodes:

Growing up, we all had our moments, where, you would spend money, you would save money just to get something nice for you or your siblings or even, mother and father, there would be sprinkles of that in my neighborhood, people would get something nice, and that would be like the talk. Like people would be like, oh, Ray got some Jordans. No, he thinks he's, he thinks he's, hot stuff. I like, just like Dawson, we're still human. We still want those creature comforts. and we worked hard for them.

Dawn:

Yeah.

Brandon Rhodes:

I mean, for our parents to provide this to us. They worked hard to see that look in our eyes.

Jason Browne:

Hmm.

Brandon Rhodes:

it's not right to shame people for that, you know? it's not always poor money management. I can't say every situation is the same but I know that we worked hard to get, like, the newest game system for me. Like, we didn't get it when it first came out, but a year later and two sales later, we got it, you know, and I don't know. I think there's something, there's a pride to it, you know, working hard. To get the things that you or or your children would like.

Jason Browne:

And I think guilt and shame is one of those things that, groups like the food bank also deal with and talk about there's a, there's one of the, the executive director of our local group, we're in State College, Pennsylvania, the State College Food Bank, said that one of the hardest things to do for folks who need food is to provide food in a way that doesn't give them the proper level of dignity. So, at our local mall, they have this. Event where they just give food away to the entire public. If you want to come and pick up food, you're allowed to go ahead and do so. It's not singling out and saying, Oh, you are in a particular position. So now, you know, people might look at you differently. People might add a certain level of guilt or a certain level of perspective. to negatively look upon somebody who needs something and judge them instead of that. They're creating spaces where it's like. The entire community can be here. You're living the exact same experience as everybody else. You just might need a little bit more right now. That's okay. I don't hear enough about organizations, providing an opportunity for folks to have their dignity while receiving a benefit from the community or from the local government. And I think that would go a long way to help minimize some of the things you're talking about if I don't have a lot of money, but I just really want to have a Starbucks today. to like, you Right. Like, and there's, and someone could easily point and be like, you shouldn't be doing that. But at the same time, it's like, I am also human here. I am living down the block from you. I also want to have these experiences and that's something that shouldn't be judged or the desire to have a life that you can enjoy should not be criticized. And that's tough though, from all the social media and all the things we see in TV, it feels like we're pushed in that direction.

Brandon Rhodes:

Why

Jason Browne:

why do you think that is? why is there's this negative, why is this a push to criticize folks who need something?

Brandon Rhodes:

That's a good question.

Jason Browne:

I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it feels that way. If you're in need of something, someone, it's easy to look upon this person and say, Oh, feel sorry for them. It's just like, okay, no problem. You're in this space. I got you. It just feels like there's a, it's easy to apply guilt as opposed to apply empathy

Dawn:

Hmm.

Brandon Rhodes:

do you see that happening more with people who have like that know poverty and are currently out of poverty? Like,

Dawn:

It's hard to know that though,

Brandon Rhodes:

yeah, it's hard to know that, but I'm just, I'm just trying to dig into the mind of the person that kind of like, like looks down upon people who need.

Dawn:

Right.

Brandon Rhodes:

is it a celebratory thing? like I used to be there and I'm not, and I'm happy about that. And in a negative aspect on a negative side of that coin, you're not.

Jason Browne:

Hmm.

Brandon Rhodes:

Like I've won, I've, yeah, I've like, I've won the contest. I'm stronger now. I'm better. I have more money. I can do this stuff. And what does that feel like to a human? whenever they look at somebody that's still in that struggle, what does it look like to people that have never known struggle to look down on somebody?

Dawn:

when we talk about privilege, the whole point of privilege is in a way a disconnect from the experience of the thing. And especially when it comes to poverty itself, when you don't have a connection with what it is like to be without, probably have an idea that it's easy to be with, or that it's not that hard. there's. This prejudice of, well, aren't they trying? aren't they actually doing things? Like I got money, but I worked really hard for my money. And it's like, yeah, well, you also had accessibility to a lot of things that this person didn't, or your situation is completely different. So I think that there's a disconnect there from empathy, because there's also a disconnect there from truly understanding what the experience of being impoverished is. I think if I were to guess it would be not. that they were without and now they're not, but more of either they were born into a place of higher, class, or they are kind of like, me where, I grew up not having money, but then racked up a bunch of student loans. And now I make a lot of money. I may own several mortgages worth of debt, which I hope to God are forgiven sooner or else we are SOL people. But, but I'm making money now and I don't have to worry about it. And so it wasn't so hard for me being a white privileged American to just be able to go to a college. I just didn't pay the money then. I'm paying the money now, but now I have an income that allows me to do that. So if it was so easy for me. Why can't why couldn't they have done it level of of people? So I feel like it could be that box or it could be the box where they just never knew in the 1st place.

Jason Browne:

well, whether it's, they didn't know in the first place, or there's something that is fuzzing up their expectations of what another person is capable of or the meritocracy of it all,

Dawn:

We're

Jason Browne:

to dig in the privilege perspective to see if we can gain any more insight to where the privilege of poverty may lie.

Jim Ott:

I grew up in a small town in Michigan I guess 30 000 people Probably when I was there it's about 40 000 now It's called Midland Michigan My parents grew up in Royal Oak They were Children of the auto industry I And my dad was the first college graduate from his family and got a job right out of college with the Dow chemical company and that's where Midland Michigan is built on the Dow chemical company And so when I grew up in Midland Michigan it was like a lot of small Midwestern towns It was extremely white And because Dow Chemical was there it was a very wealthy town I would say Now I didn't understand really anything about wealth We grew up comfortable we were definitely middle class upper middle class and so as a kid growing up I didn't know anything different This was just life and that's how we all grow up right We just grow up with our life We don't really understand the sort of cultural stories that are taking place around us And among the stories that I look back on I didn't remember this story until I was older but I remember being on a little league team a baseball team that we had the first black kid that I had met was on our little league team And I never thought anything about it I guess in many ways my parents raised me in such a way not to really Necessarily highlight that to me He was just another kid on the team and he was a good catcher and hitter But when I look back on it I remember noting that he didn't say very much Now this is a story that I understand better when I get older but at the time I just thought he was a quiet kid And I look back on it now and I think wow what an adventure it might've been for his family to move into this community And what did Derek receive from his family in terms of how to conduct himself you know when he's out in public and things that I would never have understood as a 10 year old kid I just thought he was a quiet kid I I'd pay large amounts of money to find him and ask him questions because at the time I didn't understand But that's a story that only impacted me much later in life when I look back on it So when I was 13 years old my dad took a transfer to the country of Brazil Now in today's world International travel international business moving from here to there That was really common But in the seventies when I was a kid people didn't just up and take their families and move to Brazil We didn't have the internet We didn't have any way to research it We had picture books we had stories maybe of people who had been there I look back on it now and I wonder what in the world were my parents doing Like they're in their mid 30s dragging their three kids off to Brazil They don't know nothing about Brazil None of us spoke the language Anyway I just trusted my parents and we went along and so we end up in Brazil and I was there for my four years of high school Now I attended an American school there The American school was made up about half Americans and about half Brazilians mostly but also other nationalities So we had people from various Asian countries Middle Eastern countries there was a real diversity in the school that I didn't know anything about I just happened to experience it And so my four years in Brazil were incredibly formative for me because as a middle class white male growing up in a middle class white family and community privilege If I want to use that term was invisible to me It wasn't something I knew that was even a thing I was just living life And even in Brazil I continued to benefit from the privileges of being male the privileges of being I would say wealthy Because American business people down there were well taken care of But for those four years every time I went out in public I was not like everybody else and everybody else knew it

Jason Browne:

can you give me one story from Brazil that gave you perspective

Jim Ott:

of the things I remember about going to school in Brazil because it wasn't an American school but there were again it was probably 40 maybe Brazilian students and the Brazilian students were very wealthy to attend the school their parents had to pay tuition The American students were there on the company dime as were the other international students but the Brazilian students were very wealthy And so As is often true of wealthy people they had a certain attitude and a certain expectation that comes with being wealthy and that's not a good or bad thing It's just a thing But when they would begin to speak Portuguese Before I learned Portuguese remember experiencing a sense of alienation or intimidation because these people who seem to be in in some ways I don't know in better shape than me they were richer than me I don't know what it was But they seem to have a secret way of communicating that I was left out of And I I remember distinctly feeling a vulnerability because of the language barrier and that and what happened with that because that was early in my time there what happened with that is even as I gained The ability to use the language and I would do it in public I would never use Portuguese with my classmates because I was afraid I would be exposed as not be as not being enough not speaking it well enough that they would laugh at me that I would be rejected And so instead of having this great opportunity to really immerse myself in the language my fear of being rejected or being left out or laughed at Left me avoiding using language with the people who knew it the best And it was all about I didn't feel like there was a relationship there that would allow me to bridge that gap The people that I meet in my community today where English is not their first language And you know I'm like yeah come talk It's fine Well that's because I'm the one speaking English and I know English and it's like fine with me But then I was in that place once where I was afraid to use The new language for fear that I wouldn't be able to do it well enough I retreated to my friends who all spoke English and I don't have a lot of regrets in life and I'm not going to regret anything I did as a teenager because that's silly But as if I wish I would have known then what I know now which is the classic right but I had an opportunity To become more than fluent in Portuguese And I missed it because I was afraid And I think that's what division between people does and it you know those of us who have the other side of the privilege We need to be conscious of that and not assume that people are withdrawing simply because well they just don't want to or they could if they wanted to or whatever it is I'm doing fine over here all you have to do is come and talk to me we actually have to really be intentional about breaking down some of those barriers that are created by that as I grew into my adult lives and became more interested in social issues and particularly in poverty I realized How much I had benefited from being the other even in a limited way It's an experience that a lot of people growing up a lot of white people my age growing up in America really have never experienced And so what happened to me in terms of my relationship with poverty is I went on to get into education and I became a school psychologist Well it wasn't a surprise that a lot of those kids and families were coming from backgrounds that had poverty as a part of the story And that's not because people in poverty lack intelligence or lack motivation but in many cases families in poverty because of the problems that they are dealing with on a daily basis they're not necessarily preparing their kids to be successful in school in the same way that middle class families are It's not a question of attitude It's not that parents don't want their kids to do well They're just not necessarily giving them the background experiences Because a middle class and now I'm talking economic class here middle class economic experiences are in line with what schools expect kids to be able to do Well I was prepared for that but a lot of the kids I worked with again it's not that their parents didn't care It's just they hadn't necessarily prepared their kids for that And so those kids had increasingly more difficulty if Their parents and them were not able to establish a good relationship with the school And a lot of parents that I worked with ended up with an adversarial relationship with the school because they were trying to protect their kids from a system they didn't understand it's not that the parents didn't care sometimes They cared so much that they came in and were ready to go to blows with administration with teachers because they didn't feel their kids were being treated fairly And I got you know dealing with a lot of these families I really was searching for answers to how can we better connect with the families as I like to call them the families that need us the most So in a school setting the families that need us the most are often the ones Who have the most difficulty accessing what schools have to offer them because there is this brokenness in communication based on experience and background and the families and kids that maybe don't need school as much Are often the ones that we celebrate We tend to give them the more resources We give them more attention But a lot of times those kids that have been successful Would have been successful without the school because they had the background to do it Whereas the kids that drop out the kids that fail the kids that feel alienated from the school those are the ones for whom school may be the best hope that they have maybe the only hope to establish stability in their future So I got into some material by a lady named Ruby Payne who wrote a book in the nineties called a framework for understanding poverty And her work was less about Here are specific things you can do and more about do you really understand the story that kids are living and how that story conflicts with what is expected in the school setting I started applying that work in school got involved with some community work called Bridges Out of Poverty in which we brought People of diverse backgrounds into the same room and had these conversations and the the freedom that I found in being able to apply my own story being able to realize wait I've actually experienced some of this feeling I don't quite fit in here I don't quite belong What did I do Well I did what anybody does I ran to people who were just like me because it made me feel comfortable And so in our communities if we think about economic class people in generational poverty versus people in generational middle class When they don't necessarily understand each other's experiences and stories and there's not good relationship intentional relationship building everybody feels tense So you run back to your neighborhoods and you stay with people who are just like you And we worked really really hard to have conversations that broke some of those barriers down And as a you know I look at it now and I'm thinking okay I understood some of these dynamics but I was able to speak to people in our city Because of the fact that I'm a middle class white man I actually had access to communication with people who might listen to me before they would listen to my friend Armina Before Armina got involved in our program she couldn't just call up the mayor And say Hey I've got some things to say but I actually I could and part of that was related to the fact that I had privilege So some of your work that I've really appreciated Jason is this idea that privilege is a reality And it's not it's not like denying privilege It's like understanding the privilege you have wherever it is and whenever you have it And how do you leverage that for the benefit of other people And so that's what I've been trying to do with my work in poverty in the community and some of the trainings that I do And that's how I benefited from my own personal story Because I was very much obviously born into cultural privilege by virtue of birth That had nothing to do with choice And as I become increasingly aware of that I've really tried to be intentional about leveraging it for the benefit of the community for the benefit of others rather than just selfishly using it for my own benefit my own protection

Jason Browne:

is there something that bridges the gap Between I want to work with underserved people and realizing that you may have certain levels of privilege in certain areas Is there is there a moment in time where something clicked Is there is there an example where like I got I I have to go into this

Jim Ott:

I um when I came back from Brazil I Went to college at Indiana university even though my family was from Michigan I went to Indiana university because they had Portuguese as a language and I was able to take Portuguese there and I like not cleft out but I tested out So I ended up with a year of college credit at the A level My GPA was fantastic that first year and that was a big reason why I went The other reason I went though is because they had pre optometry class and optometry was something I had always wanted to do And this is where my experience with privilege kinds of kind of comes in I had lived a life where things were very comfortable for me Part of the reason I got out of optometry is because it was hard I actually had to work and I didn't like it I kind of expected school to be easy And so when I got into psychology I knew I had to get an advanced degree because a four year degree in psychology doesn't qualify you for much I just wanted something easy and so instead of taking the harder route I took the easiest route I attribute that now to the fact that life like there'd been a lot of of of shoots for me a lot of of kind of easy slides through things that didn't require me to work hard or not just academically but even socially I did not get into school psychology to work with disadvantaged kids with kids who are marginalized I just got into school psychology cause it was in school and it was psychology The working with kids who had trouble in school was a byproduct of a choice I made to take the easy route when I was in school And then as I spent more time in school I realized Oh there is a pattern of kids and families that I'm working with that aren't doing well in the system that is supposed to be set up to meet their needs I was a little frustrated by it but I also Like a lot of people who don't really examine their own stories in context of other people's stories I kind of attributed it to faults within those families and within their attitude within their intelligence within whatever Now I didn't want to do that Like I knew that was wrong But I also that was kind of my inherent thing You know I was raised with that traditional middle class value system If you work hard you can achieve anything Well I've come to realize that if you work hard in a system that's set up for you you can achieve the things that are set up for you I'm a big fan of if you work hard better things can happen for you I don't think that's a bad thing Value but it isn't something you can apply to other people's narratives as if they've lived the same life as you and could have made the same choices I had to learn that And where I really learned that is when I went to the first workshop I went to with Ruby Payne and a framework for understanding poverty And it was the first time I really well here's one of the things that happened at that She had a quiz that she would give And one of the quizzes was could you survive in poverty And another quiz was could you survive in middle class And I'm like what do you survive middle class No you just live Well as a white middle class guy I'd lived my whole life not being the category And this quiz Shocked me because all of a sudden I was in a box and it made me realize that we're all in boxes We're all in these different categories that impact how we engage in reality And this was the moment where I really began to realize That in my work with people in poverty it wasn't necessarily that there was something wrong with the people in poverty There was something wrong with the system that was serving people in poverty we needed to amend the system and understand this dynamic of these collision of worldviews in a better way And it's also where I began to rethink my own experiences So that took me back to Brazil Oh wait a minute I've been in the situation where I felt like I didn't fit in where I knew that everyone was looking at me and knew that I was different I've been in that situation where I didn't know the language and I was afraid to go to places where I could have learned it better So people might've said well if you'd have just tried harder you could have learned the language better Yeah that's probably true But there were a lot of other forces working on me that made me afraid to do that as a person in my teen years or whatever And I began to realize that I can't take my story of the way things ought to be and assume that other people could live that same story because other people have their own stories So yeah I had experienced that and I have to be clear I have not experienced the kinds of experiences that many other people have been alienated from the system People who have layer upon layer of difference whether it's economic class race immigration status There's so many different things I didn't experience anything like what Derek experienced or at least I assume he did the kid on my baseball team who as a young black family who you know dad graduates from college and gets a job at Dow chemical and they move into this all white community I didn't experience anything like what he must've experienced but having the experiences I had in Brazil allowed me to let go of my ideas that if you just try harder you can while I can't really say that I understand what Derek went through I can at least say I know there's a story there once I get curious about that story I can build relationships that can help us work on things together That's my that's what my work in poverty has been about I now have friends literally that I would not even have made eye contact with in the grocery store If I would have seen them before we went through this work together because all of a sudden every difference that you can imagine is broken down through sharing a meal having eye contact and really understanding wow my story and your story they're more complex than we wish they were So how do we join those together

Jason Browne:

and that's where we're going to end part one on privilege as it relates to poverty. Come back in our next episode, where we discuss the story you just heard and dive even deeper with Jim with the QAP questions, answers, and privilege. In the meantime, go to our social media at privilege pod on all platforms and let us know some of your thoughts and how privilege and poverty might have impacted your life Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. And of course, it's a privilege

People on this episode

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Jason Browne

Host
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Brandon Rhodes

Guest
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Dawn Rosenbaum

Guest
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Jim Ott

Guest