{"id":41139,"date":"2017-08-14T10:42:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T16:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=41139"},"modified":"2017-08-14T10:42:44","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T16:42:44","slug":"opinion-poor-is-a-choice-think-again-by-district-12-representative-jay-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/opinion-poor-is-a-choice-think-again-by-district-12-representative-jay-hughes\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: “Poor Is A Choice? Think Again” by District 12 Representative Jay Hughes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governor William Winter<\/strong> was correct when he said:\u00a0 \u201cThe only road out of poverty runs past the schoolhouse door.\u201d\u00a0 This still rings true today, since it is no secret that the poorest schools in Mississippi have the lowest graduation rates.\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, this does not stop some people from attacking the poor.\u00a0\u00a0 They say:\u00a0 \u201cPoor people are poor because they made bad choices,\u201d or, \u201cThey aren\u2019t trying hard enough.\u201d\u00a0 While those are convenient talking points, they are simply not true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having visited so many areas of our state, I can certainly say that Mississippians are great!\u00a0 However, my travels have also confirmed that those struggling the most in our state are actually the working poor.\u00a0 These are people that get up every single day, work tireless hours, and yet must still deal with the daily challenges of trying to make ends meet.\u00a0 Living like this, day to day, leads to extreme anxiety, stress, and hopelessness.\u00a0 Most surprising is how many of our neighbors with jobs live in houses without things we take for granted:\u00a0 Internet, cable, air conditioning, washers and dryers, dishwashers or microwaves.\u00a0\u00a0 They sometimes even go to bed hungry so their children don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 These neighbors also suffer higher rates of sickness and addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Appalachian author Joshua Wilkey<\/strong> recently wrote about his mother\u2019s life and death, which echo life experiences of my family and those I knew and have come to know.\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Wilkey notes that many people think that the only barriers to achievement are laziness and stupidity.\u00a0 That is simply not true.\u00a0 Again, we are talking about the tens of thousands of people in our state that are the working poor.\u00a0\u00a0They do work hard, yet are struggling just to get by, often working more than one job and a lot more than forty hours.\u00a0\u00a0 Most poor people are not poor because they are inherently stupid, or lazy, or irresponsible.\u00a0 They are poor because of a severe lack of quality education, training, and real job opportunities, all of which doom them to a lifetime of perpetual hard work with little or no reward.\u00a0 To understand our neighbors we must understand that many of them have broken minds, broken hearts, and broken homes. They do nothing more than survive, because that is all they have ever known.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those of us who grew up poor and were able to escape it, know that we are the exception, not the rule. We understand that mental illness, poor health, and addiction are symptoms of poverty rather than causes.\u00a0 This is difficult to understand for someone who has never gone to bed with hunger pains, never had their electricity or water shut off, or never been unable to afford gas to get to work.\u00a0 And let\u2019s be honest: do we really expect children who are forced to grow up in this type of chaos to be able to break the cycle of poverty on their own?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We must try to find common ground\u00a0so we can address the very real problems that keep us from improving the lives of every person in Mississippi.\u00a0 I believe that the only way to break the cycle of poverty is through quality education and training, and seeing our neighbors as people instead of stereotypes.\u00a0 This is not something that can be done before the next election.\u00a0 It is something that will take a generation.\u00a0 But it can happen.\u00a0 And it must happen.\u00a0 It starts with opening our eyes to the reality of our neighbor\u2019s struggle, and having the heart and courage to do something about it.\u00a0\u00a0 In the end, education is the single most powerful tool that can change Mississippi.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor William Winter was correct when he said:\u00a0 \u201cThe only road out of poverty runs past the schoolhouse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":41142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[7822,4117,1447,10789,5,10788],"class_list":["post-41139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-opinion","tag-district-12-representative","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-jay-hughes","tag-joshua-wilkey","tag-mississippi","tag-william-winter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2017-08-14-JayHughes.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}