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Saturday, December 17, 2011

In Response to Newt Gingrich and His Comment About Poor Kids Having No Work Ethic

I recently read a fellow blogger's post about Newt Gingrich's speech that included very ignorant and some might say racist comments, some of which included: poor kids "have no habit of showing up on Monday, no habit of staying all day, have no habit of 'I do this, and you give me cash' unless it's illegal." He also commented that kids coming from really poor families have no one around them that works.

Mr. Gingrich has no fucking idea what he's talking about.

Seriously.

First of all, I would very much like to know if what he says comes from experience. Firsthand experience. It's highly doubtful that he actually lived through poverty, and the reason I say this is because it takes a lot of old money to run for president. For some reason, I'm pretty sure he's been at least middle, if not upper class for his entire life.

Secondly, I would like Mr. Gingrich to know that I grew up in a low-income neighborhood. My parents were divorced when I was three, leaving my mother, who had graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Apparel, Merchandising and Textiles to fight for every job she ever had. She worked her fingers to the bone, metaphorically and physically, trying to provide for our family of two. There was even a time when she had three jobs at one time, working literally 80 hours in a week. Through the years, our little family has grown, and my family has gone from low-income to middle class. The family income runs somewhere around eighty thousand dollars a year.

Now, Mr. Gingrich, let's look at me: I graduated 11th in my class of 275 in high school, while taking the only three AP classes that my high school offered, a feat that only one other student tried. I maintained straight A's through high school, and passed all three of my AP exams, achieving a top score on one of them. I started working when I was 12 years old, because my mother taught me that if I ever wanted anything in life, I had to work for it. At 16, I took a trip to France that I raised the funds for. When I returned, I began working my first "real" job in retail sales, and I maintained that job while I was attending high school and earning top grades. After high school, I took up two more jobs to help me pay for my first year of college at a prestigious, private, liberal arts school. I attended this school by making the money myself, and on merit scholarships. I achieved a 3.2 GPA and graduated last May with my Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. I spent the last year working for a non-profit organization that helps crime victims through the criminal justice system, while also working a full-time job to support myself and my unemployed fiance (who came from a mid- to upper class family). I think it goes without saying that I held down a job throughout my college years.

Now let's talk about kids from middle and upper class families, shall we? Many of the students that I went to school with in high school had never done a day of work in their lives. My town is built on the middle class, so over half the people I went to high school with fall into this category. Most of them have settled on staying in our hometown, going to a two year school, getting married and repopulating. Some have decided to go to four-year colleges, but their parents have paid all the bills. I have not seen ANYONE work as hard for what they want as people from low-income families.

Mr. Gingrich, if you want the popular vote, for God's sake, know your fucking audience. Because most of this country is outraged at the things you've said.

Thanks for being this year's Sarah Palin. Maybe when you lose, you'll leave politics completely and write a book about how hard it is to be upper class.

Signed,
A girl from a poor family.