permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

http://bigthink.com/videos/c-nicole-mason-on-poverty-in-america 
<http://bigthink.com/videos/c-nicole-mason-on-poverty-in-america>

What Causes Poverty? Not a Lack of Money, but a Lack of Social Relationships

 <http://bigthink.com/experts/c-nicole-mason>
C. Nicole Mason <http://bigthink.com/experts/c-nicole-mason>
Policy and Economic Justice Expert
Dr C. Nicole Mason was born in Los Angeles, raised by a beautiful but 
volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between 
an unpredictable home life and school where she excelled. Having figured out 
the college application process by eavesdropping on the few white kids in her 
predominantly Black and Latino school, and along with the help of a high 
school counselor, Mason eventually boarded a plane for Howard University, 
alone and with $200 in her pocket.

Mason found a path out of poverty – something that only 4% of America’s 
impoverished population are able to do. An alarming majority will never rise 
into the middle class, and so it seems that in the US, if you’re born poor, 
you stay poor. And no one is being very honest about this invisible caste 
system.

Mason is a vocal advocate against the presumption that the poor are poor 
simply because they don’t help themselves enough. “[In college] we heard a 
lot of things about welfare queens, people living off the system, not wanting 
to work, women being lazy, having multiple children. And that really wasn’t 
the reality for the women who were actually impoverished.” Mason found that 
the policies were detached from reality, and in fact the barriers built into 
the system (some intended to motivate people) – such as time limits, 
additional child penalties, and few provisions for childcare – were 
ineffective and suppressed social mobility. “What was excluded from that 
policy was a clear pathway out of poverty, like education,” she says. 

When people think of poverty they think in terms of money and material 
resources, but a large part of being poor is suffering from a lack of social 
connections and networks, and living in a low-income area with no 
infrastructure that enables the leap up to the middle class.

If institutions and leaders want to support and elevate poor communities, 
Mason argues that they need to provide better infrastructure (like libraries, 
parks, good grocery stores, and hospitals) as well as bridging programs both 
within the community and, very importantly, outside of it, so people can get 
in contact with people outside of their normal social network. “We just need 
to be honest about what it really takes for everybody to have a fair shot at 
the American Dream,” she says.

Dr. C. Nicole Mason's new book is Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey from 
Nothing to Something in America 
<http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250069924>.