Poverty discussed at Wesleyan has always seemed a distant and tragic issue; one to be analyzed and intellectualized over and over, until it eventually loses any real meaning. About half of the student body doesn’t receive any financial aid, and as someone who is here on full-scholarship, I’m honestly frustrated of having class discussions and conversations with friends who will simply never understand the experiences they are analyzing. I’m frustrated hearing exclamations of surprise when someone finds out another way Wes has screwed over FGLI students, frustrated hearing the “easy” solutions that they then offer in response. 

And the thing is, my wealthy friends…it’s NOT your fault. I’m so happy that you haven’t experienced anything close to what my friends from home and I lived through. The family and income bracket that you are born into is NOT your fault (ever) or responsibility (yet). What is your responsibility now, however, is shutting the fuck up. 

Instead of intellectualizing poverty, amplify and listen to the voices of those who have experienced what you have had the privilege of analyzing rather than surviving. Voices like mine.

Look, I’m a conventionally-attractive white girl from Texas who was raised by a mom and step-dad who love me deeply and showed me that love. I went to a school that was dedicated to getting low-income girls to college, and it got me here, to Wesleyan. I got this opportunity to “get out,” to go to an elite institution, to receive consistent food and stable housing for nine months a year. I’m going to leave this school with a degree that will (hopefully) provide me with some amount of financial security. Many of my friends and the people that I grew up with never got that opportunity and never will. I don’t take my position and my opportunities lightly. Though the shit I’ve dealt with is and was traumatic, I want to emphasize that due to certain privileges I managed to escape a lot of pain that many people, so many of my friends, face. 

Here at Wes, I’m starting to realize that a majority of the people at this school have no idea what some of the realities of growing up poor are. So I will share some of my own personal experiences in an attempt to remind you that poverty is not an issue to be intellectualized, it is a reality that many people at this school and all over this nation live daily.

I was homeless by the time I was five. I had no idea what was going on, not really, because my family made it out to be a game. I would get to have sleepovers with my cousins! I saw their stress and hurt but didn’t understand, because we were supposed to be playing a game.

The game ended for me when I was seven. I knew we were poor then. I knew not to ask for things, not unless they were offered, and even then I would feel guilty because I knew that my mom and dad were always so stressed. I knew that sometimes I would come home to no power and we would have to live by candles and flashlights until we could scrounge up some cash. I learned that the fridge was not to be opened unless necessary, in an attempt to try and keep the food cool for as long as possible. I stopped inviting my friends over because I would see their parents’ faces when they dropped them off, would see them locking their car doors, scared just because they were in my neighborhood. 

By middle school I had moved nine times, mostly due to prices going up, but a few times because we couldn’t pay the rent in time and were evicted. I felt guilty for anything I bought. I stopped telling my parents about the school trips that cost money, because I didn’t want to put anything else on them. My step-dad worked three jobs. My mom ran her own business. They were doing so much, while both in college full-time.

I wore the same shoes for two or three years, duct-taping the holes because again, I didn’t want to put any burden on my folks. I didn’t go to the doctor when I was sick. I wore the same uniform skirt everyday, hand washing it mid-week so that it was fresh because we could only afford the one. We poured water in our milk, and pasta sauce, and soaps, all in an attempt to get another week or two out of them.

By high school, I had seen people die. I had seen my first shooting, had had pimps try to get me to work, and had watched people shoot up. Two of my closest friends were sent to juvie for selling pot brownies. Within three months of release, my friend, who prior to juvie had only ever smoked weed, overdosed on coke. Within a year all of the people in my main friend group were regularly doing ecstasy, coke, acid, and more. We were only sixteen. I had friends try to kill themselves. I saw people I grew up with disappear. Through all of that, every single one of us still went to school, tried goddamn hard to get into college, to help our families, and  to get the fuck out.

When I found myself here, listening to these class discussions analyzing and abstracting poverty, I was shocked and fucking hurt. Then, hearing those same voices shift to talking about traveling to the Bahamas or to their lakehouse, I was angry, confused, and I felt so alone. I watched as other students who experienced poverty were talked over, saw their recommendations and needs be overlooked, or not even considered. I felt that I had to be the voice of reason in every class and conversation, had to try to get people to stop talking about “liminal spaces” long enough to hear some of the realities of the perspectives that they aren’t considering. I’m exhausted.

Please, and I’m speaking for all the poor kids here, shut the fuck up. If you find yourself talking about things you have no experience with, just shut up. Because if you’re speaking over me, you’re definitely speaking over other more marginalized women, and if I’m exhausted, they’re beyond exhausted. Shut up and you just might finally hear someone you were speaking over. Give someone else a chance to speak. Then listen to those people, do the things they’re telling you to do, and when you do feel the urge to analyze and abstract the realities of poverty, make sure I’m not around.