A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne Read Free Book Online

times.
    Probably couldn't do anything with it; that's why he needs to listen to that heavy breathing! Pant! Pant! (laughter) What a no-count, low-down creep. I'll pay Bodding to kill him!!
    Bodding says the only way Walter is coming out of jail is in a pine box.
    Don't blame him myself.
    Yeah, Miss Rosie said Walter's momma said at the trial that the door to Walter's room was open and there ain't no way Walter could have done that. That she is a good Christian momma and she don't put up with that.
    Oh Lordy, did God strike her dead on the spot, or is she still alive??? I'd be afraid of ending up in eternal damnation for telling a story like that!
    Miss Rosie said her i2-year-old nephew testified that the door was closed and his grandma told him to say it was open!!!!

    Ooo! Ooo! Oooo! That poor baby tells the truth? His grandma's gonna make him mis-er-a-ble!!!
    And then Walter's momma tells that jury that she never allows those adult videos in her house, leastways not that she pays for them!! (lots of laughter)
    I bet the judge bit on that one!! How is Walter gonna get videos except for her money? Mowing yards? (more laughter) No, I bet he saves his pennies!! (laughter)
    All these years she has covered for Walter. Guess she just couldn't cover no more.
    Remember that time Walter got drunk and wrecked her car, and she said she was driving? And she was at the hospital at the time with a broken leg. And the judge asked her how she could be driving and in the hospital "simultaneously." And she said that's just how it was-simultaneously-she had never felt so excited in her life. (laughter) Who turned Walter in?
    Well, it wasn't Susie's momma. She was busy with Skeeter, her new boyfriend. I hear he's something.
    Remember that one boyfriend she had? Thought he was so smart?
    Speaking of smart, that Susie sure is. Her blind and all, and she won the district spelling bee for the seventh grade this year. I hear she's in National Honor Society, whatever that is.
    Wonder if it's kinda like the country club. Instead of playing golf, you just spell!!! (laughter)
    Susie calls this friend of hers who tells her mother and they come and get her and take her to the police and hospital.
    Some rich lady, not minding her own business, that's for sure.
    Well, it was a good thing for Susie, 'cause that momma of hers sure ain't good for Susie. She don't deserve a kid like Susie. SHE oughta be the one who's blind.
    Ain't that the truth. Way I see it, she already is. Just look at Skeeter!! (gales of laughter)
    (The preceding was an actual court case heard in Houston, Texas, during March 1995. Italicized print indicates what came out in the trial; plain print indicates the kinds of comments that might be made by others in generational poverty.)

    Using this case, check which of the following characteristics of generational poverty are present.

Even in telling me some of those stories that involve a great deal of humiliation at the hands of hospital or welfare personnel, she usually manages to find something that's funny in the madness of it all and keeps on saying things that make both of us laugh (in describing Mrs. Washington).
- Jonathan Kozol, Amazing Grace
    DEBRIEFING THE WALTER CASE STUDY
    The Walter case study is an example of many of the issues in generational poverty. The family members all live together. Momma is still the most powerful position and these children are nearly 50. Momma will always make excuses for her children. After all, they are her children. The matriarchal structure and possession of people are there. She decides their guilt and punishment, not some outside authority. She leans on the self-righteous defense of being moral and Christian, but not in the middle-class sense of Christianity. For her it is simply one of unconditional love. Reality is the present-what can be persuaded and convinced in the present. Future ramifications are not considered by anyone. Entertainment is key, whether it is moral or not.

    The neighbors'