We are all Structurally Trapped…

I used to look at middle class people with some disdain. I would think these privileged people are insulated from the “real world”. They live in the suburbs, shop at Specialty Grocery Stores, drive hybrid SUVs, go skiing in Vail, and live oblivious to the challenges most people in the world face, and it pissed me off.

Growing up working class and getting an elite college education, I was influenced by the biases, assumptions, and beliefs that shape the middle class, and I made some early choices that began moving me towards that lifestyle. Then, while in seminary, I began working vocationally to interrupt the cycle of generational poverty, particularly in low-income urban communities. It took me a while, but I discovered after becoming relationally involved with folks who were structurally trapped in material poverty, that people who lived in the middle class are no less structurally trapped, but by the biases, assumptions, and beliefs that shape what it means to be middle class, and I began to see all of this in a different light.

I grew up working class, living in a community that was considered to be “low income.” My first exposure to folks who were not like me was in college, where more than 60% of students came from families that ranged from middle-class to extremely wealthy. While my family had most of what we needed, it was nothing compared to the excesses that I saw in college. Now, before you react or get defensive, let me state that this finger I was pointing at them was, for a time, also pointing at me.

To be Structurally Trapped refers to how a combination of public policies and the resulting socioeconomic factors work together to shape a person’s lived experience so much so that they develop biases, assumptions, and beliefs about who they are and what they can (or cannot) do in the world.

Some people are structurally trapped in material poverty because their biases, assumptions, and beliefs are shaped by public policies that deny them access to opportunities to meet their basic material needs. Others are structurally trapped in the middle class because their biases, assumptions, and beliefs are shaped by public policies that seduce them into indiscriminate consumption and the pursuit of material wealth and comfort.

In isolation, these appear to be unrelated, but when people from these groups are in authentic relationships with each other, it is obvious (sometimes painfully) that they are not just related but serving to help perpetuate the other.

The dictionary definition of Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, which is an admirable trait for all of us to have. However, Empathy has a much more profound and transforming role to play in our lives. If we are going to interrupt the cycle of generational poverty and bridge the race and class division in our society, we will have to let Empathy have its transforming way with us. We must find ways to be in real authentic relationships with people who have been harmed by our biases, assumptions, and beliefs. We need to do all we can to help heal that harm and allow those relationships to reshape our biases, assumptions, and beliefs about who we are, and what we can (or cannot) do in the world.

Robert Caldwell currently provides professional development training for practitioners who work to interrupt the cycle of generational poverty. Trainings include Poverty, Race, Class & Culture and the Cost of Poverty Experience.