Myths take on a life of their own, supplanting reality and facts within the psyche. Once a myth takes hold, it becomes difficult to eradicate it, and even once one eradicates the myth, the residue remains, spreading over the floor of our minds until we sweep out the final piece of dirt from our psyche. One of the most persistent myths that we tell ourselves is that individuals can pull themselves from poverty if they “really” want to, but individuals don’t do this because they are “lazy” or “shiftless” or have “no work ethic.” This myth has a long history, going all the way back, I would argue, to multiple intersections, specifically enslavement and Puritan theology.

Enslavers used stereotypes to justify enslaving individuals, and those stereotyped included presenting people of African descent as uncivilized and savage. This carried with it the belief that enslaved individuals were lazy and shiftless and that the enslaver had to force the enslaved to work. As a result, through enslavement, the enslaver would “civilize” the enslaved, teaching them industriousness and a dedicated work ethic, the latter of which has some roots in Puritan theology.

Puritans held to a belief in predestination, that God chose some to reside in paradise and some to languish in torment removed from God’s presence. This belief also held that everyone had a station or role in life, a position that an individual could not extricate themselves from. God chose some to be rich and some poor. John Winthrop lays this out in his sermon “Modell of Christian Charity” where he states, “All men being thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor; under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved; and all others are poor according to the former distribution.” Winthrop calls upon the rich to help the poor, but we all know how that goes.

Blessings became a means to determine whether or not God predestined someone to salvation. If someone succeeded financially, it became a sign of God’s blessing, that God chose them for salivation. If someone did not succeed, they were not chosen by God. This way of thinking, while removed from direct religious aspect, still weighs upon us today. Benjamin Franklin, a deist, exemplifies it in his autobiography when he pushes anyone who assisted him in his success to the side, barely mentioning them in the text. The intersections of enslavement and religion raise their head when we see discussion of individuals using government assistance or government programs meant to help citizens.

Angela Davis realized this myth at a young age. Thinking back to the community she knew in Birmingham, Alabama, she points out the dangers of believing in a myth that labels individuals in poverty as warranting their position and inferior to the wealthy or those who can make ends meet. Davis writes, “The prevailing myth then as now is that poverty is a punishment for idleness and indolence. If you had nothing to show for yourself, it meant that you hadn’t worked hard enough.” Within Davis’ statement we can see the intersections of enslavement and religion. “Poverty is a punishment for idleness and indolence” justifies enslavement and justifies wealthy individuals from denying support to the impoverished. As well, it ultimately places the blame for someone’s economic position on the person, not the system that enacts the system.

When discussing racism, Davis points out that racism, while expressed by individuals, is part of a systemic issue that works, like the gears on a clock, together to maintain oppressive institutions that foster racism both on the individual and the systemic level. She writes, “Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in — by paying Black workers less for their work. We talked about the way racism confuses white workers, who often forget that they are being exploited by a boss and instead vent their frustrations on people of color.” By demonizing individuals in poverty, it makes it easier for the wealthy to justify their positions and their increased push for profits over adequate housing, healthcare, education, and other services that would benefit them just as much as they benefit the individuals who need them the most.

Racism, as Davis lays it out, serves the wealthy because they use it, through the systems they construct, to sow division amongst individuals. They control individuals through rhetoric, and they do this to maintain their own positions while harming countless others. Lillian smith puts it this way: “Men hungry for political and economic power could not resist exploiting this terrifying complex of guilt, anxiety, sex jealousy, and loneliness” for their own profit. The myth of poverty being a result of a person’s actions permeates our discourse so much that it keeps people from seeing that its not a “lack of desire,” as Davis puts it, or a “defectiveness of their will to achieve a better life for themselves” that keeps people in poverty. It’s a use of rhetoric and the creation of myths that the wealthy use to construct a narrative of poverty being an individual’s fault instead of a systemic issue.

White supremacy buttresses up this language, using it as racial code for Black and Brown individuals. Lee Atwater made that abundantly clear in an 1981 interview when he said that you can’t be overtly racist anymore; instead, you have to “say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.” This language relies on abstraction, and Atwater continued by saying, “you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.”

Reagan played into this, kicking off his campaign in 1980 by delivering a speech on states’ rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the place where white supremacists murdered three civil rights workers: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Reagan, and Richard Nixon and others before him, used coded language to stir up poor whites. As Michelle Alexander puts it, “The not-so subtle message to working-class whites was that their tax dollars were going to support special programs for blacks who certainly did not deserve them.” By removing “explicitly racist rhetoric” from their public speeches, these politicians continued driving wedges between individuals in order for them to gain power or maintain wealth.

Research shows, in numerous studies, that whites benefit from government assistance more that people of color. A recent study noted that only 21% of welfare recipients are Black. The most recent data from 2020 shows that 27% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients were Black while 45% were white. This demonization and misinformation has dire consequences for individuals, including children. Last year, multiple states voted to deny passage of free lunch programs for all students, with many politicians using dehumanizing language to block the bills. When the North Dakota Senate pushed to pass HB 1491, a bill that would provide school lunches for low-income families, Sen Mike Wobbema said, “Yes, I can understand kids going hungry, but is that really the problem of the school district? Is that the problem of the state of North Dakota? It’s really the problem of parents being negligent with their kids.” Wobbema’s language blames the parents, and by extension the kids, for not having funds for food. This is what the poverty myth does.

We imbibe myths, believing them wholeheartedly because we don’t do the work to dismantle them. So, we continue to believe them. By believing the myths that individuals feed us, we enforce their views, we succumb to their way of thinking. To eradicate those myths, we must confront them and dismantle them, periodically sweeping the floor clean of any remaining residue that the myths leave behind. We must remember that the myth of poverty is just that, a myth, used to wield power, used to maintain a system of oppression. We must dismantle the myth.

What are your thoughts? Please let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.