{"id":3682,"date":"2017-12-30T20:03:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T00:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=3682"},"modified":"2018-01-02T11:01:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T15:01:58","slug":"bigot-works-crisis-pregnancy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2017\/12\/bigot-works-crisis-pregnancy-center\/","title":{"rendered":"When A Bigot Works At the Crisis Pregnancy Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"braiding-2027488_640\"<\/p>\n

You meet the most interesting people on the internet.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was discussing common misconceptions about food stamps with somebody in a public thread, when the thread was crashed by a woman who claims she volunteers at a crisis pregnancy center. This woman had all kinds of incorrect notions about food stamps and the people who have to use them to stay alive. I\u2019d love to get into all of her blunders in that thread, but I need to focus on one thing she said first of all. Here it is:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I see women going to a crisis pregnancy center driving a relatively new SUV, with a fancy nail job and corn rows, and a new Iphone, and PLEADING POVERTY. We do not suggest they cut back, but find them housing assistance, maternity and baby clothes, and whatever else they need.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Corn rows.<\/p>\n

There is so much wrong with this quote, but first of all I need to take a minute and talk about corn rows.<\/p>\n

For anyone who doesn\u2019t know and would like to, the term \u201ccorn rows\u201d refers to a braiding technique wherein the hair is braided right up against the scalp in tight braids. It\u2019s not something you have to get done at a beauty salon (though they can do it for you there as well). It\u2019s just a kind of braid. You can get a friend to braid the parts you can\u2019t reach. It takes time, but then the hair tends to stay that way so you don\u2019t have to do it again for awhile. In fact, I just asked my friend Daniella, who is African-American, and she says she puts her daughter\u2019s hair in\u00a0multiple braids because a single braid would be too big for a hair tie and little braids are a much easier way to make her hair neat.<\/p>\n

Why was this woman on the comment thread offended that poor women she was volunteering to help had braids? What did she want them to do with their hair?\u00a0 Shave it off? Strew it with twigs and ashes so they looked appropriately penitential? In my experience, judgmental women like this get as upset when poor people don\u2019t look neat and clean as they do when they look like they\u2019ve spent too much money on their appearance. What could they have done to win her approval?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve mentioned before how hard it is for a poor person to look like the \u201cright kind of poor<\/a>.\u201d There\u2019s a certain note you have to strike when you seek help\u2013 you have to dress yourself to look destitute but eager to work, clean but not preened, apologetic and wholesome and humble. I have a \u201cright kind of poor\u201d outfit and hairdo planned out in advance whenever I have to go bring paperwork to Job and Family Services or another agency. I hadn\u2019t fully considered how much harder it might be for a black person.\u00a0 My limp, wavy red hair can get slicked into a ponytail, but as Daniella explained, that\u2019s not necessarily going to work for her. But if she or her daughter braid their hair because it\u2019s free and less work, they\u2019re accused of having spent too much time and money on their hair.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just my objection to two words of this CPC volunteer\u2019s diatribe. I haven\u2019t even touched on the rest of it yet. So a woman drives to the crisis pregnancy center for help, in an SUV. Maybe the person seeking help actually needs a car, for work, so she drives it to the pregnancy center to get help instead of leaving it at home and getting on the bus. Maybe she has too many children to fit into a small car and the SUV was the only larger used car for sale at the skeevy dealership that gave her a loan even with her terrible credit. Maybe she wanted a sensible used mini van but couldn\u2019t get one at any place that would lend to her. Maybe she has a rich relative who just bought a brand new SUV, so he had last year\u2019s car cleaned up and gave it to her for a hand-me-down. Maybe she borrowed the SUV for the afternoon. Or maybe she hasn\u2019t revealed that she\u2019s in a crisis pregnancy yet, and her parents are going to take the car away and leave her with nothing when she does. Was she supposed to refuse to take the SUV so that she could look like the right kind of poor person?
\n<\/p>\n

The woman at the Crisis Pregnancy Center has nice fingernails. Maybe she spent thirty dollars on a manicure as a treat for herself. That doesn\u2019t mean she doesn\u2019t really lack the approximately 10k it takes to have a baby in a hospital in this country. And how do you know she didn\u2019t spend about ten dollars or less, to give herself a manicure? Or maybe her beautician aunt gave it to her for a gift? Or maybe she herself is a beautician, and has to have nice nails to show customers as part of her job?<\/p>\n

She had a smartphone. You can get a smartphone on a payment plan. I don\u2019t have one; I have a tracphone and a computer at home and I pay through the nose for internet every month.\u00a0 But some people don\u2019t have a computer and pay through the nose for a smartphone instead. They use the phone for their only telephone number and also for email, all their internet use, to apply for jobs, to check on their library loans, to apply for jobs and to pay their bills. Should they pay more for some other means of doing all of that, so they look like the right kind of poor person?<\/p>\n

If you volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center or any other organization that helps poor people, great. Thank you very much. I know that most people who work in those places are generous folks who genuinely want to help, and we need far more people who genuinely want to help.<\/p>\n

But I want to caution everyone: this kind of person also works at crisis pregnancy centers. Racist, judgmental, materially comfortable white women sometimes volunteer at CPCs for a hobby or so that they can feel better about themselves for helping the pro-life movement. And these women mock the plight of the women they claim to be helping, and they do it in public. And, trust me on this, poor women who are or might come to be in crisis pregnancies see them. They hear what\u2019s said. They know what volunteers at crisis pregnancy centers are thinking. They know they\u2019re being judged and mocked for\u00a0their race\u00a0or for\u00a0being the wrong kind of poor.<\/p>\n

We see you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had to use a crisis pregnancy center before, to get on medicaid and find a doctor who would take it\u00a0 when I was pregnant with Rosie. Abortion wasn\u2019t an option for me; I am pro-life. But the next time I\u2019m blessed with a pregnancy, if I\u2019m still poor enough to need Medicaid, I\u2019ll think twice before going to my local Catholic-run crisis pregnancy center.\u00a0I think I\u2019d rather go\u00a0to the secular \u201cwomen\u2019s center\u201d in town to get a referral to a doctor and anything else I need. Because I\u2019ve seen what CPC volunteers like this one think of me and other poor mothers, and I don\u2019t want to get within ten feet of one.<\/p>\n

Women who come to crisis pregnancy centers, or any charity or agency which helps poor people, need compassion. They need kindness and empathy, someone who understands the obstacles poor people face. They do not need comfortable, racist church ladies to publicly mock their hair and nails. If a poor woman in a crisis pregnancy is scared away from any support she might get because the volunteers are bigoted jerks, the Lord sees the suffering of that woman and her unborn child. He knows whose pride caused it.<\/p>\n

God sees you.<\/p>\n

And so do we\u2013 so do poor people.<\/p>\n

We see you.<\/p>\n

And when people tell us \u201cthere\u2019s help available if you choose to keep the baby,\u201d we know what\u2019s actually available a lot better than you do. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. We know how you really feel about us and our precious unborn babies.<\/p>\n

All the people who work in places like this and actually want to help ought to be the first to refuse to tolerate that kind of bigotry.<\/p>\n

(Image via Pixabay)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You meet the most interesting people on the internet. Yesterday I was discussing common misconceptions about food stamps with somebody in a public thread, when the thread was crashed by a woman who claims she volunteers at a crisis pregnancy center. 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