Poverty Appropriation. It’s A Thing.

Ever heard of the tiny house movement? My dad is quite the renaissance man and has a ton of hobbies, so I know a bit about it. It’s pretty cool– the idea of being off the grid and saving a ton of money. It’s not a lifestyle or hobby I could see myself getting into personally (I like bigger homes and have precisely zero mechanical abilities), but I’m fascinated by the movement. I like the “off the grid” feel. It’s neat. I get a kick out of the douchey Brooklyn hipsters who pretend to be all about it. Like they know how to build anything and live off the grid. Funny.

But listen. If you live in a tiny house and/or have one for whatever reason, you’re a total jerk. You’re actually committing another SJW sin: POVERTY APPROPRIATION.

Oh yeah– it’s A Thing. SJW July Westhale is having a difficult time accepting the “tiny house” movement, because she grew up in a small mobile home. HELLO. Some people actually have to live in tiny houses. THEY DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. And you’re WILLINGLY doing that when you don’t have to? That’s so insensitive!

This background, this essential part of who I am, makes it particularly difficult to stomach the latest trend in “simple” living — people moving into tiny homes and trailers. How many folks, I wonder, who have engaged in theTiny House Movement have ever actually lived in a tiny, mobile place? Because what those who can afford homes call “living light,” poor folks call “gratitude for what we’ve got.”

 

And it’s not just the Tiny House Movement that incites my discontent. From dumpster diving to trailer-themed bars to haute cuisine in the form of poor-household staples, it’s become trendy for those with money to appropriate the poverty lifestyle — and it troubles me for one simple reason. Choice.

*Insert “I thought progressives were pro-choice” joke here*

This idea of “returning” to a “simple life” is one I struggle with. After all, there aren’t any glossy photos of the Palo Verde Mobile Home Park where I grew up, enticing people to live more simply and own less furniture as a means to becoming happier.

 

It’s likely, from where I sit, that this back-to-nature and boxed-up simplicity is not being marketed to people like me, who come from simplicity and heightened knowledge of poverty, but to people who have not wanted for creature comforts. For them to try on, glamorize, identify with.

Such appropriation isn’t limited to the Tiny House trend, or even to the idea of simplicity.

So people can’t embrace a simplistic lifestyle because it’s offensive to those who have to live a more simplistic lifestyle? How stupid.

Speaking of stupid, Westhale seems to have a problem with everyone indulging in cheap food too.

Also, food. Can we talk about food? I was raised poor as hell, mostly subsisting on frozen food and whatever was canned in the pantry. For years, I’ve hated rice, because its cheapness and starchiness made it such a staple in our meals. Rice for breakfast with milk. Rice with margarine. Rice with frozen vegetables and canned beans. As an adult, it’s hard for me to eat rice unless I can pretend real hard that it’s not rice. But I still have a bag of it in my cupboard, just in case.

 

For other poor folks, it wasn’t necessarily rice — it was bones. Dried beans with a ham hock. Stewed greens. Meat and pickle plates. And now, these kinds of inexpensive, filling food items most commonly found in poverty-stricken households have become de rigeur at some of the hippest restaurants in the country: you can find meat and pickle plates being schlepped off in fancy restaurants as charcuterie, or bone marrow appetizers for $12 per plate at many of the new eateries popping up in affluent cities (or newly affluent, like Oakland).

 

GAWD.

Anyway, Westhale wants everyone to know that she understands alternative means are necessary. After all, capitalism is “oppressive as hell,” and she’s “all about alternative means.” (I wonder if Westhale is familiar with the shenanigans going on in everyone’s favorite socialist utopia, Venezuela.) She just wants everyone to realize that some people are poor and have to eat rice and live in a small home. They don’t have a choice. But you? You totally do, so why are you trying to like, glamorize simplicity, you jerk?

It’s basically the dumbest critique ever. I mean, progressives are constantly complaining about the rich for buying more than they need.

Cue Mr. Three houses, Bernie Sanders.

How many yachts do billionaires need? How many cars do they need? Give us a break. You can’t have it all.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 21, 2017

If you’re rich, you shouldn’t buy extravagant things. But you also shouldn’t live small either. Basically, you suck and should feel horrible about having money and options. You are Literally Hitler. Probably. Just curl up and die. That’s probably best for everyone.

h/t PJ Media