Poverty's Snowball

So yesterday I had the chance to go to an event that would have been not only been a wonderful event, but a really good thing for me to do in terms of my career and in support of two great friends and supporters of mine.  The event, Reels for Rights was a small screening of several films advocating for human rights.  It was open bar and going to be packed with the whole of the NYC human rights community.  As my friend said: there will be countless important people there, and I need to come schmooze them, and get myself into job consideration.  I RSVPed weeks ago and was looking forward to it that whole time.  But when the day came I didn't get to go.  I was dealing with the trail of bread crumbs of my own poverty, the repercussions of a life as a poor person.

A year and a half ago I was unemployed, sleeping in a tent, and clutching at straws.  When I was finally offered a job I had no choice but to take it.  It didn't pay me enough to live on my own, and wasn't career oriented at all, but it was work.  There was one catch though, I had to have a car.  I of course didn't have the money to buy one though.  I had $500 to my name at the time, and a hundred dollars a week from unemployment.  I was forced to go into debt to get a car and of course got the absolute cheapest car I could get financed for.  $7,200 for 2001 Honda Accord.  It was nice enough, leather seats, good gas mileage, nice sound system... I really liked it, still do.  But it had few unknown issues at the time.  Like that the transmission was slipping, and it cost $3000 to replace it.

The job itself wore on the car too.  In 6 months at that job I put 22,000 miles on the car driving all over Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.  I stopped working for that company last November and moved to NYC, but I am stuck with the car.  It is worth $5000 now - if it didn't need a new transmission, shocks, and have its dents - yet, I still owe $4500 on it.  Even if I could sell it, I am not going to get enough to pay back the loan.  I'm underwater on it and I'm stuck with it. 

It's a $300 a month burden that I obviously can't afford still being unemployed, so I've been doing a car share with a friend.  But is has put a lot of wear and tear on the car - a thousand miles on the car in the first three weeks of November, and Brooklyn miles.  The transmission is night and day worse and all of a sudden needs new shocks.  You give it to someone and three weeks later its rattling away....  They've gotten in two fender benders in three months, one that left a dent on the door.  Needless to say, the car's been beaten up.  It is not their car, it is like a rental.  And while I love this person like a sister, it has really been a horrible thing for me and my longer term fortunes, even if a necessary evil for my short term survival.

But I have had no choice.  I was poor. I'd finally found a job, and had to have the car.  I couldn't afford to buy or lease a good car, so I got the cheapest I could.  It was bound to have problems, just like anything you buy cheap.  Just like the two can openers I've bought at the dollar store during the last two months, both broke within weeks.  The cheap things poor people are forced to buy break much more easily than quality goods that those with money can afford.  So for a year and a half now I've been stuck with this car and its problems in New York City - the unfriendliest place in America for cars! 

So last May the car inspection was up.  I hadn't paid attention to when it was up - I was busy trying to find food and not paying attention.  When do you think about those little things when spending all of your time trying to survive?  Needless to say, I got a ticket for an expired inspection and made an appointment to get it done, but I got two more tickets in the four days I had to wait for the appointment to get it inspected.  $180.  I didn't have the money.  So I just didn't pay it.  I kept thinking about it.  Can I now?  Nope.  Food, rent, whatever.  The tickets went up to $75 each, but that was still under the $350 threshold before they tow you.  At least that was a month ago when I last checked.  I came to find out Thursday when my car was gone that they went up again. 

I saw the empty spot in front of my house at noon.  And I had a 2pm job interview to get to.  Sigh....  How can I concentrate on the interview when I'm screwed.  It now costs $700 to get it out of impound.  I don't have that kind of money.  I can't even pay rent right now, nevermind have extra cash for that.  So here I am, scratching to make ends meet, I have to triage money every day and didn't pay the tickets because food and shelter were more important.  I literally just made a decision two weeks ago.  I had $650 from working, what do I do with it?  I gave $500 for rent and kept the rest for food, phone, insurance, car payment, etc.  $650 isn't enough to live on.  I just didn't have the money to pay for the tickets, for the car that I had to get, so that I could get myself out of poverty.  And now - without that job - couldn't get rid of the car, because the only car I could afford when I was in poverty (and had to have one) has no resale value because it has too many problems.  My poverty is snowballing upon me, and driving up the costs of my poverty just because I can't afford things that will last.  And now here I am on the Friday I am supposed to be going to this career benefiting event, and instead I am dealing with the car I's rather get rid of but can't. 

I had a decision to make, do I just leave it and walk away from it?  If I do, the impound lot auctions it and covers their costs and my tickets first.  But if the the sale isn't enough I'm still saddled with that, and regardless I would never cover the value of the car and would default on my loan.  But where do I get $700 from?  If I can't I'm out of the car, the credit, and all the value included in the vehicle.  Enter the white knight...  yeah, my friend offered to pay for it.  She has really sound logic in it all.  If I go to school next year outside of NYC I'll have to have a car.  But how do I buy one with what would then be bad credit, and little money?  And what kind of car do I buy for $1000?  What's to say it won't have all the same problems this one does?  The only difference then is that I've lost every penny I put into this other one and have crappy credit.  If I can come up with the $700 I keep going, keep trying to make ends meet. 

I accept her offer.  But these kinds of things don't always come free and clear of repercussions.  Yes, I don't see this as an issue for she and I.  But it still is a burden within yourself no matter.  Taking money like that from someone else, hat in hand, desperation as your sole motivation.  More importantly though for the plight of the poor is how many people in poverty have that type of resource?  How many poor people have friends with cash like that?  And if they do, at what cost?  Someone does you a favor, gives you a loan.... what is the social cost of this exchange between friends, families?  Loan sharks, what have you.  It is a tough one to navigate.  Poverty drowns itself in its own minescule capacity. 

For me though, this decision wasn't about the car, my credit, favors, or friends, it was about  my security.  My life is very insecure.  I am living in a wholly precarious housing situation that could end at any minute.  My car has been the only steady thing I've had over the last year and a half.  I have lived in it, used it as a closet, moved with it, and escaped in it.  Without it I am truly at the mercy of my poverty.  So I took the favor, and went to get my car out of impound.  But I had PhD applications due that day, so I couldn't leave right away.  Then I rode 8.5 miles to the place to pay, then back past my house another 12 miles to the impound lot where I proceeded to stand outside (yes, there was no indoor waiting area) for almost two hours in a windbreaker and sweaty clothes.  It was dark by now and with a temperature in the 30's I was shivering and worrying about catching hypothermia while I waited.  I finally got my car, but I was deliriously cold.  I rushed in got the heat on, and left.  I get home to realize I left my bike there, so I drove back, got it and then back to Bed-Stuy again.  Twenty plus minutes each way.  I'm at least warmish by now though.  But I haven't eaten much of anything all day as I've been running around and my housing situation doesn't afford me the power to be able to cook whatever I want.  Normally I'd have a crock pot going to just be able to eat and go.  I'm famished, so I grab some pizza (which of course costs more than a home cooked meal), and need to get in the shower to warm up. 

But its 8:30 by now.  The event was from six to ten in Manhattan.  I've missed it.  Missed a chance to better myself for the simple fact that I am not already better.  My poverty has snowballed upon me, an avalanche of debt, worries, bills, and stress that consumes me to the point of near ineptitude.  Poverty sucks, is systemic, and endemic here.   But at least, despite the calamitous pressures surrounding me, I nailed the interview.  I will be taking my almost two masters degrees and eight some-odd years of international business experience, to a gourmet super market where I will be a delivery boy - yes, the same job I had while I was in High School!  I've come full circle!  But at least I'll have food and shelter... and a platform to keep fighting from!


 

My Statement of Purpose

I started my academic career as an undergraduate in sociology. Growing up in a household that always had to make do with a modest income, my studies emphasized economic injustice in American society and issues of race and ethnicity. I was especially influenced by the way that economic sociology brought social and cultural depth to scholarship on economics that tended to focus almost exclusively on “the maximizing, rational individual.” After completing my BA in sociology, I pursued an interdisciplinary MA in Economic and Social History at the University of Manchester, where I gained exposure to theories and methods from economics, social theory, political science, and history. Together with my supervisor, Peter Gatrell, my research centered on the social transitions that accompanied economic and political transformations in post-Soviet societies. My thesis on post-war Czechoslovakia examined how Cold War politics shaped socioeconomic institutions. Specifically, this project examined how multilateral aid efforts had been undermined by geopolitical shifts, creating economic challenges for the local populace and hampering the reconstruction process. The Manchester program helped me to refine an abiding interest in the relationship between crisis and economic transformation.

Once I completed my MA, I found myself living abroad with no visa and few employment options. So, I took a job in an industry that drew on my past research, although ultimately tested my ethical and political boundaries. Based in Prague, the position involved working on security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to research, writing, and improving my Czech language skills, my job included work on private and institutional financing, planning and proposing economic development strategies in war-torn areas, government contracting, and aid work. It quickly became clear to me though that I was flirting with war profiteering. The political and ethical conflicts with this job created one of the most challenging periods of my life. However, my disillusionment helped to develop my critique of the relationship between militarism and economic and political development. I saw first-hand how neoliberal development priorities penetrated all facets of everyday life in developing regions, limiting individual and collective empowerment as exploitative low wage employment led ordinary people to make distressing choices between feeding or protecting their families. I watched as neoliberal institutions, corporations, and political interests worked to “rebuild” countries and societies upon the “blank slate” created by war and destruction.

Wanting to situate this critique intellectually, I pursued graduate study at Central European University in the Sociology and Social Anthropology department. Whereas my work at Manchester was focused on macro-level socioeconomic analysis, CEU's program was far more anthropological, providing the opportunity to explore local systems and individual agency to a far greater extent. Classes on development, globalization, power, and resistance exposed me to the scholarship of Karl Polanyi, James Ferguson, Giovanni Arrighi, David Harvey, Arjun Appadurai, and Jean and John L. Comaroff, among others. This line of inquiry led me to realize that the theories and methods employed in many types of economic analysis were inadequate to the social problems and historical contexts that comprised the focus of my research. I was inspired by the insights sociological and anthropological approaches could offer the study of economics and politics.

At CEU I broadened my interest in post-conflict societies through sustained attention to the history and development of Sierra Leone. My research highlighted social and economic crises in the context of the patchwork of structural adjustment programs and various genres of civil strife experienced there. My work centered on the theoretical concept of “liberal peace” (or “democratic peace”), which posits that liberal societies—with their focus on the individual, private property, civil liberties, and free markets—are inherently more stable and peaceful. My research suggested that, to the contrary, an idealized notion of individualism often led to more competition. Because competition is inherently antagonistic, it often leads not to peace but more readily to conflict, increasing the probability of outright war. Following my research on Sierra Leone at CEU, I planned, fundraised for, and undertook an investigative/awareness-raising trip to Sierra Leone to learn and to identify opportunities for community-based entrepreneurial and humanitarian work to help people recover from civil war. As part of building local alliances, I worked on increasing cultural awareness, became proficient in Krio, and used my time to set up a community-based organization in the city of Makeni aimed at small-scale projects that could create jobs and provide investment for the local community. This work helped me appreciate the logistical problems of development aid in Sierra Leone, symptomatic of analogous situations elsewhere in the global South.

Back in the United States, that course of inquiry shifted in the beginning of October 2011 when I became active with Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and channeled my intellectual energy into applying this socioeconomic critique here. For years, I had hoped to establish an online People’s Think Tank for research and discourse using democratic and participatory approaches. When the Zuccotti Park occupation began, I used these skills and resources to help create and facilitate the Think Tank Working Group, which expands direct democracy through the collection and dissemination of ideas by directly engaging and empowering individuals. We continue to facilitate informal, open, and documented discussion forums throughout New York City and have expanded the Think Tank to other Occupations, community groups, and now to a weekly radio show here in New York City (wbai.org). Discussions range widely, from health care policy and corporate personhood to race relations in Zuccotti Park and Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. We have yet to realize the full potential of the project and are currently working on the logistics of how ideas generated in Think Tank discussions can be more accessible to the public, as well as part of public Think Tank research projects involving the ideas generated both through this process and those surrounding the greater movement.

My involvement with OWS has led me to a fuller appreciation of the relationship between economic and social change and academic scholarship on societal transition. My participation has only raised more questions for me about the relationship between liberal democracy and neoliberalism. In particular, I’m interested in mechanisms of social control in neoliberal society. For instance, the state's exceedingly violent crackdown on the protests has been largely shaped by military tactics and narratives based on the so-called “legitimate” use of force. These tactics have repeated modern methods of social control: a monopoly on the use of force, control of ideas, social messages, and protests. My experiences within the movement, and especially my interactions with the media, have raised unavoidable questions for me: Was there a systemic attempt to use repressive/oppressive and ideological apparatuses to exclude ideas, and to unfavorably skew public opinion away from the movement? What (if any) collusion was there between public and private actors—especially regarding the media and policing? How did the movement's own structure and message (anarchic, amorphous, and without clearly enunciated direction) affect coverage and public understanding of the movement? And most importantly, what does the Occupy movement and its interaction with state, private, and informational apparatuses mean with regard to “democracy” in neoliberal America and the world?

These are the questions I hope will frame my PhD work. Broadly conceived, the crux of my inquiry looks at a broader contradiction that has regularly surfaced in U.S. society in the face of civil unrest: On the one hand, U.S. national identity is often articulated in terms of rights and freedoms to political assembly and free speech, civil liberties and property rights, economic and social freedoms, and freedom from the use of repressive tactics often seen in “less democratic” regimes. Yet, this ideal has been in direct conflict with an institutionalized response using brute force, censorship, and coercive methods to suppress the Occupy movement. This was on prominent display during the slow transition of public empathy for the Occupy movement to the "law and order" and state/corporate message that many people bought into, even despite its obvious contradiction to the freedom of speech, expression, and fight for economic and social justice—the true democracy—that people are taught and wish to believe America is about. Are media, police, and public perceptions mere outcomes of a greater contradiction? And if so, to what origins? As the aforementioned institutions are largely shaped by state actions and interactions with private and corporate interests, the study's core would look at neoliberalism's dominant position within the shaping of American policies, worldviews, and culture, as well as exploring whether there is a growing part of America that has become so entrenched in “the system” (media, education, law and order, mass culture, etc.) that they can no longer assess and critique “the system” surrounding them.

Having spent the last year on the ground with OWS, sleeping in the park, organizing discussion groups, being actively involved with the media, engaging with Occupy on every level, and feeling the very repression I look to study, I am uniquely positioned with ties to the movement's core to carry out this study ethnographically, historically, and archivally....

Addendum to the Barriers to Entry

Ooops.....  update to the Barriers to Entry..... it seems that the $17,000 I made in 2011 exceed the $15,600 threshold I need for the fee waiver on the application fees.  It doesn't matter that in the last year I haven't made $5600 dollars, only that over a year ago I made slightly more than the threshold.  What about now?  What about that I haven't made much of anything since and have been living off of the assistance of others right now?  As if the only people that need fee waivers are the perpetually poor, not the recently unemployed or underemployed.  Does poverty only exist in line with the tax year?  No, it is endemic and symptomatic of American society, yet we can't even offer education for our citizens to bring themselves out of poverty.  Basically, the system that's fucked you, just keeps on fucking you.  That's no meritocracy.  That's capitalism.   

The Barriers to Entry

So I am applying to PhD programs again this year.  But as is the American motto, it takes money to make money (or even to try to get the chance to learn how to make money).  This is an issue for me.  I am poor.  I have made maybe 4 to 5,000 dollars this year so far.  I've been staying places for free, working whenever I could find money - political fundraising, childcare, construction, catering, whatever.  All the while looking for real work and doing volunteer stuff.  Nothing has been materializing in my over/underqualified world.

So here I am, back to the old dream and applying for schools.  This of course is met with a broad smack in the face at America's true shame: the barriers to entry faced by low income individuals.  To get into programs I need to "apply widely" (as I've been advised) to increase my chances of entry.  This is something I intended to, but did not do last year for various reasons mostly revolving around my involvement with Occupy.  But the shear barriers to be able to apply to a number of programs are immense.  Between application fees, the cost of sending GRE scores ($25 per school), and transcripts ($25 to send them from all three schools that I attended), is a lot of money.  If I want to apply to ten schools, that is $250 for the GRE scores, and then another $250 for one set of transcripts each (though many schools require you to send two), before you even look at application fees.  The cost of fees which are usually between $75 and $100.  So that's $12-1500 to apply to ten schools.  I have 18 on my short list and 12 that I feel that I need to apply to.  So I'd be looking at $1600 minimum and over $2000 to apply to the bulk of them and give myself the best shot at getting in.  NOt to mention the cost of my time to do the research and write the applications.

Now granted some schools offer application fee waivers for low income applicants.  But not all.  Three of my first six don't.  And it is $275 for those three.   I had been counting on them all having waivers, but there are solid schools for me that I really have to apply to for the best chances of admission.  Two of these I have connections at already working for me that are strongly encouraging me to apply.  But I may not be able to now.  To everyone that thinks America is a meritocracy take a second look.  I may not even be able to apply to some schools because just I don't have enough money.  And one of these mentioned is my fall back school.  I have to apply, it is the only way to try to guarantee my acceptance.  

But what if I was rich?  I could apply to 20 schools, 30 school, whatever.  My chances of getting in would be greater, thus my chances of success in this field greater.  But no.  Not mine.  I'm low income.  I have to make strategic decisions (such as the one that I made last year and then didn't get in anywhere).  I have barriers to my entry.  The Lohan's, Kardashian's, and Hilton's, and Drake's of the world throw money around on glitter, bottles of champagne, strippers, and superficial material things, yet a person looking to go back to school and make both themselves and hopefully some day the world a better places can not do it for the simple cost of one of those bottles of champagne. 

How can anyone say this is the greatest country there is?  We claim to be a place where you can do anything!  Well I may not be able to apply to go to school because I am not wealthy enough.  In most places in Europe, school tuition is free, never mind applications.  If you are good enough to go, you get to go.  I may not even be able to apply, and for no other reason than that I am poor.     

Individualizing Desperation

It is amazing how the human psyche works.  I am continually working and acting in cooperative and communal ways.  The work I do, the volunteer stuff, my Africa project, academically and intellectually, everything is team focused, egalitarian, and about working together.  But it is amazing how when times are tough and a longstanding at that, that your body and mind enter into a survival mode that is tough to work through sometimes.

My situation is well chronicled here on this website.  Lots of education and experience, a keen analytical capacity, hard working, whatever.. but no professional place to use it right now.  It is tough.  But beyond just the remorse of not being in the place I'd like to be, there is a desperation that comes with poverty and the basic human struggles for food and shelter.  What I'm referring to is a selfishness that comes about.  A selfishness that would drive the starving to snatch food out of a child's hand, or knock an old lady down to get to a loaf of bread.  Now obviously I am not there, and would like to think I could always overcome something like this.  But I can feel and see subtle moments of it seeping into my conscious awareness and attacking my subconscious on many levels.  The instinctive self medicating that so many of us do when we are hurting such as rushing to "comfort foods" (I ate a bunch of doughnuts yesterday, which I have no business eating with my allergies), or to liquor, or risky things, sports.  Things that make us feel rebellious  alive, viral, whatever.  We all do this stuff at some point.  Act out in individualistic ways that inject enzymes, adrenaline and such, into our world and brains that make us feel "better", if even for a moment.

What I am talking about right now though is an overlooking of others and even perhaps sometimes basic protocols of human interaction and attention based on immediate feelings of personal desperation.  Not taking the time to say thank you, somehow feeling it is implied, not responding to a call or text, not paying attention to someone else's efforts to help you with or care of their ideas and works in respect to what you are so desperately trying to do.  I am finding myself doing these things.  Just so desperately focused on trying to change my situation that I am pushing myself internally, working to market myself, survive myself, that I lose track of those surrounding me and the attention they deserve.

I have been speaking in "we" terms for years, and have really struggled focusing on the proverbial "I" - marketing myself.  But that is where I have to be right now.  My resume needs to make me sound like King Kong, my writing projects need to sound like I am the smartest thing ever, my PhD prospectus like I thought of all this shit myself.  At times I lose track of the care for others that has been the cornerstone of my adult existence   I've rescinded into home-life more and more, and am not paying attention to others in the way I am accustomed to.  Not saying thank you, not working with someone in a way that expresses a team effort....  sad.  I know I am better than this.  I know I will be back there some day.  But I am worried that some of these situations and ways of life may become bad habits.  Since I left Europe I have gone in the wrong direction.  I've been training myself in desperation ever since I got back to this country over three years ago.  I definitely don't like these desperation and individualistic habits I'm picking up here.  But what can you do?  I just want to get back to being stable - if such a thing ever existed.  

Hurricane Sandy and the Frankenstorm

This is where it all hits you.  That you have no outlet for your skills.  Last night a devastating storm hit the New York area and the eastern seaboard of the US.  Deaths, destruction, power failures, explosions, high winds, flooding...  "unprecedented damage and destruction" they are saying.  Yet here I sit, on a degree in post-conflict reconstruction and additional business/graduate work in reconstruction - all of which dove tail with disaster reconstruction.  The theoretical and logistical situations of the two are the same, the only difference is security; an additional factor in war torn areas that you don't have to deal with in disaster reconstruction.

In 2002 I organized independent flood clean up and reconstruction in Prague when most of Central Europe flooded.  I organized funding and donations from abroad, flew in supplies from the US to Prague by creating relationships with air carriers, set up a team of volunteer workers in Prague, and cleaned up several locations in the worst hit area of Prague, an area which was under 9 meters of water (about 25 feet).  We then helped fund, rebuild, and rejuvenate the area. 

I ended up in school after that and studied rebuilding in the historical perspective of World War II, then I worked on Iraq and Afghanistan for a couple years, and went back to school and studied current day issues of rebuilding from sociological and anthropological perspectives - rebuilding after war in Africa, but more pointedly economic development in general.  I went to Sierra Leone and walked around the country assessing needs and how to build society and economic infrastructure after the brutal civil war.   But back here in the US, these skills have gone unused.  They don't seem to be able to find a "market".  It makes me want to shake my fists and say "I can do anything - if someone will just give me the chance!"  The bottom line with it, is that what is about to happen in the New York Metropolitan area is something I have both experience and training in.  I have a lot to offer.

I have no outlet for these skills and experience though.  I am sitting at home in Brooklyn writing rather than troubleshooting, engaging, and problem solving ways to rebuild the areas destroyed by this storm.  Do I volunteer?  Do I just go out and try to get into the mix?  The mayor though has said everyone should stay home, home and interfere with trained workers.  I'm trained, but I'm not a worker.  How do I reconcile this within myself?  If I go out and volunteer I am then sacrificing my capacity to find work and pay rent next month.  I have no job, and despite every inkling within my heart, finding income has to be my priority - sadly, beyond helping others - if I can't eat myself I am of little help to anyone.  Why can't I find this kind of work helping others?  So here I sit, wasting my time venting to my electronic devise that my skills and experiences are just wasting away.

Could someone give me something to do?  I've tried to do it myself, but haven't gotten anywhere.  Could someone give me an outlet for my training and skills?  I can help.