Lt. Governor Needs to Understand Before Generalizing

A recent statement by our state’s Lt. Governor regarding government assistance has caused me to wonder about how we view other individuals with less means in our society. I can assure you that truly understanding poverty in South Carolina cannot be passed off with a sweeping generalization about poor people. It certainly cannot be better understood by using a comparison of these individuals to stray animals. The challenges and barriers facing the poor in South Carolina is both crosscutting and extremely complicated. Often times, people and even leaders, want to stereotype others into certain categories without examining all of the real facts.

Poor people in our state are faced with a multitude of challenges each day. A parent, and often a single parent, may be working multiple jobs to keep the family afloat. To assume that by not attending a parent-teacher conference, they are not interested in their child’s wellbeing is not a fair assumption. Furthermore, if you plan to punish a family because a parent does not attend such a meeting by taking away subsidies for their children to eat, what have you accomplished? You sure haven’t helped the child. We have a split society in South Carolina- “the haves and the have not’s”. It is pretty easy for those of us who have steady incomes and positions of influence to pass judgment on the other half of society.

We know where our next meal is coming from and we know that there will be a roof over our head tonight. What we don’t know are the obstacles a parent living in poverty may face. Do they have access to transportation? Do they have adequate access to information or communication? The fact of the matter is that every child that attends public schools receives some level of support from the tax payer. Some school districts fair better than others and therefore some children fair better than others. Let’s not make rash generalizations about people living in poverty unless “we have walked in their shoes” and we have all the facts.

We should be spending our time and energy debating how we are going to help our poor communities get a fair education for their children, more job training and job opportunities for their citizens and therefore, more people contributing in a positive way to our society as a whole. I would much rather spend our time focusing on opportunities and possibilities than establishing additional barriers for the already marginalized segment of South Carolina’s population.


Tom Keith is the president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina