But they Have TV?!

The quote, "99.6% (of people considered poor in the US census) have tvs." made me think about the comments I had to endure while I worked with HFHI in West Virginia.  I wrote about my experience in West Virginia, here, as well.

Most of the people I led were high school or college students at the affiliate for their spring breaks.  Well meaning people.  Hopeful.  Often, this was their first encounter with poverty.  For many of the high school youth the basic bunk beds, communal bathroom and lack of cable TV, combined for their first taste at "roughing it."  All ages often came thinking they were really doing "something."  And they were, I don't mean to minimize their efforts.  Their money and time could have been directed towards many other spring break options.  Their time, talent, prayers and sweat made a difference in the lives of many...and often times changed their own lives forever.

Mixed with this beneficial effort, was a sense of self importance.  Their sense of "I'm really making a sacrifice" led many to make pretty harsh comments on the lives of the community members.  It was as if their sacrifice gave them the permission to teach others how to sacrifice.

The comment I heard most often was on how many satellite dishes people saw on the homes we drove by.

This is an area of our country that would shock most everyone in my day to day small city/suburban life.  It resembles third world poverty.  People living in boxes.  Homes without windows.  Twenty year old trailer homes with walls of cardboard or sheets of plastic and duct tape.  Outhouses and water pumps.  Dilapidation and refuge.

So, yes, the satellite dish on the roof was worth a mention.  It was an odd juxtaposition in a place that seemed to transport its visitors to an America most of us never knew existed.  But there was no cable TV in the area and the mountain terrain made basic TV reception nearly impossible.  The volunteer center staff had made a conscience decision not to have access to TV in the volunteer center but the affiliate Executive Director had a dish.

After a few months of the volunteers commentary, I wanted to yell..."They have no education, no job, no hope of a job, no medical care, no teeth, barely enough food, plastic walls, and it has been this way for a generation or two...so they don't really know how to change it, but you are most concerned over the fact they have a satellite dish so they can watch the news or tune out by watching a sitcom?

I got it.  Part of me wondered, too.  Wouldn't the money used towards the satellite dish be better used towards food?  (especially when, as many would say, the greater community/government is paying for your food.)

But not many people who visit my life ask me why I grab a coffee at Starbucks or lunch at Panera when that money could be better saved towards my kid's college fund or saved so we would need less of a home loan.  Even my Christian brothers and sisters rarely push me to give more of my money to those with plastic walls.  While people may think snarky or judgmental thoughts (myself included), no where in my middle class life are we free to actually comment on people's spending habits as if it were our born right to butt in.

So yeah, they have satellite dishes.  And yes, they even have refrigerators.  My real concern is that, too many think, this is the problem.