The easiest way to ignore any problem is simply not to see it. This thus signifies that for a very wide swath of Americans, they are basically ignorant about how impoverished so many of their fellow Americans are, in this the richest nation that the world has ever known. For instance, the United States Census Bureau tells us that in January of 2021, 37.9 million Americans lived in poverty. Yet, how few of Americans, ever interact with those that are the poorest amongst us – probably because our society is segregated quite clearly into those that have and segregates out those that have not. After all, many successful people aren’t really interested in having to see or to notice or to bump into those people that are clearly struggling, because they prefer not to personally acknowledge such.
In point of fact, many of those that are successful or on the pathway to success, deliberately make it their point to first of all live in those areas in which they are surrounded by an infrastructure that confirms that success, and that therefore means for the most part, that they thus won’t be accosted by or have to face the fact that so many other Americans have so little. Additionally, it’s a lot easier to ignore poverty when a given person can simply and blithely drive through those zones of impoverishment, never having to take in what poverty and abandonment actually means to those people that are experiencing it, in the real world.
Any society, in which certain segments of it, are basically ignored or pushed to the side, as if such doesn’t exist, is not a healthy society. Further to the point, all those that can do something of substance about poverty, but aren’t themselves impoverished, or don’t congregate with those that are poor, or often prefer to keep at an arm’s length distance from those that have nothing, aren’t going to be good administrators or advocates for those that are the most disadvantaged amongst us.
If this nation wanted to do more about those that are in poverty, the very first thing that they would do would be to stop forsaking the poor. The next best thing to do would be to stop with the attitude of “not in my neighborhood,” and things of that general ilk, which does nothing positive to resolve that which needs to be resolved. In point of fact, those that are poor, need to be provided with the opportunity to see that their life can be improved, by providing those that are impoverished with all the required accouterments so necessary to have a safe and prosperous community, such as decent employment opportunities, good schools, affordable heath care, vibrant parks, and reliable transportation.
In sum, if the rich and prosperous refuse to permit those that are impoverished to be near them, then what has to be accomplished is to see that those that have the most wealth are taxed appropriately, in which, a portion of those taxes are thus set aside to help those communities and people that have so little, in which, those that are without, and have been forsaken, can thus have some reasonable semblance of the American dream, for as it is, all they have is the nightmare.