Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I The Inconvenient Truth: Poverty is Real
- PART II Turning the screw on poor people: shame, stigma and cementing of a toxic poverty narrative
- PART III Flipping the Script: Challenging the Narrative war on the Poor
- Notes
- Selected Further Reading
- Index
5 - The Games we Play: Weaponising the Narrative
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I The Inconvenient Truth: Poverty is Real
- PART II Turning the screw on poor people: shame, stigma and cementing of a toxic poverty narrative
- PART III Flipping the Script: Challenging the Narrative war on the Poor
- Notes
- Selected Further Reading
- Index
Summary
“I was so embarrassed. It's really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”
A ‘lunch-shamed’ seventh grader in Pennsylvania, 2017“Make no mistake. Slashing Medicaid, Medicare, nutrition assistance, affordable housing, disability benefits and other programs that help families afford the basics isn't ‘welfare reform’ any more than giving huge tax cuts to billionaires and wealthy corporations is ‘tax reform’.”
Rebecca Vallas, Center for American Progress, 2018It's party time: fuelling the poverty narrative after the crash
In May 2017 I wrote one of my regular ‘Lesson from America’ columns for The Guardian about a practice taking place in many US schools that on first encounter struck me as so awful as to be unbelievable. ‘Lunch shaming’ – where youngsters who can't afford to pay for school meals are shunned publicly, and often in front of their peers – was occurring in numerous places across the country. When working on my column I look out for trends related to poverty, and in 2017 instances of children being humiliated in this way were being shared more and more. The New York Times told the story3 of one child from Pennsylvania on her first day in seventh grade who qualified for free school lunch but, due to a paperwork mix-up leading to an outstanding bill, watched as her tray of food was thrown in the garbage while she stood in line in the cafeteria. “I was so embarrassed,” the girl told the Times. “It's really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”
The New York Times article recounted other, similar instances:
A Pennsylvania cafeteria worker posted on Facebook that she had quit after being forced to take lunch from a child with an unpaid bill. In Alabama, a child was stamped on the arm with: ‘I Need Lunch Money’. On one day, a Utah elementary school threw away the lunches of about 40 students with unpaid food bills.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Shame GameOverturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative, pp. 151 - 172Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020