"poverty pimps" & the equity question: who gets wealth & power?

Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:56:49 -0800 (PST) 

Pat wrote on 1-18-97 in "Re: Nonprofit helps the poor find their voice":
>Another concern I have is that poverty pimps may be "enriched" at the
>expense of those whom they believe they "help" by more than money.

Most poor and homeless people I know need money much more than we need
caretakers.  Yet those who help us meet our aims merit at least enough pay
to survive.

It's not unfair to get paid to help others, but too often social programs
do too little to end or even reduce poverty and homelessness.  Homeless
people need the power to decide which efforts to help us are worth funding.

>....We *can help ourselves, and we *can be advocates without poverty pimping
>(let's find a way to -- albeit long and drawn-out  --  say what that is
>every time, ok?)...

"Poverty pimp" is a label used to discredit those who speak and do "for"
the poor.  I too detest the better-than-thou mindset among those who speak
and do "for" us.  But lest we become biased, we need a fair standard for
who is a poverty pimp and who isn't.  People who make professional pay but
do little to help their "charges" would merit the label of "poverty pimp",
I think.

*Any ideas, anyone, on what shows for sure that a person is a "poverty pimp"?

>This is an issue I've been wrestling with for a long time...advocacy.
>I was a single parent with two young children...no help but Welfare and
>school...then worked my way through several years of school...I'd been
>homeless, actually, more than once in my life (and dread the possibility
>of another such experience!)...am I not a fair advocate for all the groups
>mentioned above?  Is accepting recompense (monetary) for what I might
>do...is *that poverty pimping?  Hell, I'm *still poor!

Those of us on the list, who live poor ourselves and help our peers, are
not poverty pimps.  Maybe the core question comes down to whether a few
deserve much, much more than others, when many have too little to even get
by.

*What's constitutes "equity", in the sense of a fair distribution of wealth
and power?  Any philosophers out there to shed light on such a big
question?--Tom