Food Stamps.

Hustlin': How to Apply for Food Stamps

A friend of a friend (Ms. Mercedes Kraus) wrote an article about her ongoing financial struggles and her quest to get food stamps for GOOD. Please click the link above to read it (or skim it if you're lazy and mediocre) before you read my comments about it. 


I'm not sure I understand the intent behind the article. I should have listened to Rick Ross a few more times. I think GOOD's Hustlin' series (I don't read it) has to do with moving forward with whatever you have and trying to put yourself in a better place to succeed. "...we go beyond the pitying articles about recession-era youth and illuminate ways our generation is coping." Why does Mercedes sound so goddamn guilty about needing food stamps even though she comes from a middle-class background? I don't really understand it. I know it's just a title, but I thought hustling implied that you gotta do what you gotta do. At least that's what I think when I see the little Mexican guys in the middle of the street selling bottles of water for a dollar on hot summer days. Or the kids selling candy bars for their "high school baseball team." So I don't feel sympathetic about any of it, but then again I don't know if Mercedes wants me to.


My problem with the article isn't really about the presumptions people (in the comments section) say she makes. I love presumptions. I'm also not against using the system to your advantage. If you can find a way to get food stamps even though you don't need them, by all means, do it. And do it big. (I'm not implying Mercedes doesn't need food stamps, I have no idea how much money she makes.) What I mean is if you're going to have food stamps, don't feel weird about it. Stack them shits up and make it rain on the checkout dork at Trader Joe's. Be proud it. (I guess you can't really make it rain with a credit card looking thing. It would be weird to keep throwing the card at the cashier's forehead and picking it up, only to do it all over again.) Justify "abusing" the system because of all the necessary basic things it doesn't offer. Like affordable healthcare or reasonably priced education. Where is all this guilt coming from? Is it colored white? That's a genuine question.


The thing that became most apparent to me is that the idea of "struggling" seems to be really lost on people. Maybe it's just my generation (and undoubtedly future generations). Or maybe it's just the underemployed college graduates that I know and talk to. Either way, it's frustrating. To me, "struggling" is something severe. It's more than not being able to buy a beer/shot deal at your local dive bar. "Struggling" doesn't mean picking an unpaid internship because it makes more sense for a future career. Tell somebody that is living in poverty that you have a nice, shiny unpaid internship for them and I will bet all $783 of my life savings that they'll look at you like you're from some place foreign and weird (the bank?). "In-tern your ass around and get the hell out of my face." To me, struggling is the genuine worry of making it another day. 


"...I look like I'm living in poverty." That's a bit (shitload) of a stretch. If I were to describe what Mercedes looks like, solely based on the Platinum Benefits card and not from my memory of seeing her out, I'd say she looks like one of those girls at the bar that won't talk to me. And for good reason. I may not look like I live in poverty (people in poverty wish they could stunt like this) but I sure do look like a guy that has a disgusted look on his face when he sees the latest handlebar-mustachioed idiot using his food stamps at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. (Sorry, I just can't shake the picture of all the yuppie/hipster (same thing) shoppers at both of these places. I shouldn't assume that people who use food stamps only do their grocery shopping at Target and the corner store but I'm sure these places are more frequently visited than any Whole Foods.)

Search "American poverty" in Google and this is the first picture that comes up. This might be extreme but it's also closer to real poverty and real struggle.

I'm not above food stamps. I would apply for them in a heartbeat if I thought I qualified. That's a lie. I would apply for them in a heartbeat if I wasn't so fucking lazy. That's the truth. But at the same time I wouldn't justify it to myself or to anyone else by saying that I need this internship that might lead to a meaningful job at a non-profit or any of the other ridiculous justifications you can think of. No. I would say, "I got food stamps. Who wants to have a Dorito eating contest? Why you ask? Because we can. And because I ain't payin' for it." 


Most of the people I know who are college educated and working shitty jobs aren't struggling. We're choosing. We're choosing to pursue our dreams/delusions. Whether it be to make the world a better place at a meaningful job or to try to get paid by being funny (my delusion). We're choosing to live in overpriced apartments in Brooklyn, NY because that's what we want to do. We're going into credit card debt because we know at some point we're either going to settle for that corporate job and stop preaching or one of our relatives (if not our parents) has a place we can sleep and not pay rent. If we were struggling, this shit would be way different. We wouldn't dream of quitting our jobs and going on a few month vacation to India (who has a Going Away Party for that?). That's not struggling. That's living the life. Why feel guilty about it?