Growing up middle class in middle Georgia
by Blake Hudson
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Blake Hudson
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I grew up middle class, never living in poverty. I never thought that race could be the driving factor behind poverty. My mind has been changed.
My middle-class parents raised me to believe that everyone gets an equal opportunity to succeed. This is what my parents taught me, and this is what they lived. For all 21 years of my life my mother has held a consistent, well paying job and my father has usually held a job, though more inconsistent.
My parents work hard, and do all they can to provide for my brother and me. I have the privilege of attending private college at their expense, and my brother is working in a career that he enjoys. My dreams were handed to me. I worked hard, but it was much easier for me because I knew that if I did my part, the world would reward me.
For those living in poverty in the United States, especially blacks, hard work is not enough. I recently learned that the median household income of white households in Rome, Ga. is approximately $44,500, compared to $19,000 for black households. This statistic became is now etched in my mind. I could not wrap my mind around the fact that there is a $25,500 difference? I learned from Nicholas Kristof’s column, “When Whites Just Don’t Get It,” that the average net worth of white households in the United States is $110,500, compared to an average of $6,314 for black households. These numbers confound; they are almost impossible to fathom.
“I worked hard, but it was much easier for me because I knew that if I did my part, the world would reward me.”
My great-grandparents were sharecroppers. They did not own their own land, but made their living harvesting others’ fields. They worked long days in the scorching Georgia heat. In return they received less than ten percent of the landowners’ profits. In order to make more money, they had more kids. More kids meant more hands to pick cotton. They worked hard and made all ten of their children work even harder.
Though none of the ten were able to attend college, their kids went on to work other jobs and make more money than their parents.
Their grandchildren, including my mom, earned college degrees. Each Christmas one of the ten children, Frank, holds a family reunion in his basement. Uncle Frank owns his own house, on 400 acres of land. When I look at his house I think of the dreams my great-grandparents had.
They would look in awe at the big, white plantation houses from the fields and see their wrap around porches with columns in the front and children playing in the yard. All while their children were hard at work next to them. I am sure they dreamed of one day owning a house like this. Now their son Frank hires help to do chores on his land and pays them more than my great-grandparents ever made.
This story of economic progress is one result of hard work, but not just hard work. Though poor, my great-grandparents were white. Their skin color gave them and their kid’s opportunities not available to blacks of the era. The people my great-grandparents worked for wanted to see my family succeed. But the same cannot be said for blacks working the same land. The problem cannot be lack of effort. Whites in the United States are not working $25,500 harder per year than blacks.
These numbers do not exist because black people aren’t working hard, and you cannot out-work these inequities. The picture here is of completely different socioeconomic realities. This is not to say that there are not wealthy black people and poor white people; there are always exceptions. I do not know how to fix the problem of poverty in this country. But now I know that there is a problem, a very serious problem. Awareness is an important first step.