Aporophobia: Why We Reject the Poor Instead of Helping Them
by Adela Cortina
The author is a professor emerita of ethics and political philosophy and paints a broad sweep of a picture here including both the history and politics of what people think of the poor. Cortina speaks to the changes in this country—President Biden welcoming the poor immigrants in—and the ongoing nightmares—such as the Haitians who were chased by guards on horseback.
All is not well in the land of the poor, which Cortina explains, is pretty much every land. The notion that immigrants bring lots of problems but certainly nothing of value to offer is an important theme in the book.
Since the days of the “undeserving poor” and the various battles against poverty (none have really succeeded in conquering it) persons who find themselves trapped in poverty have been in the news. Every day, we hear about what the poor are doing, what the homeless are up to, and what the people
out there without jobs and money are (supposedly) doing to destroy our nation.
Currently, just within Chicago, we have over 60,000 (native) homeless, over 20,000 new migrants who are homeless, and all the numbers are up, up, up. There are over 16,000 homeless students who attend Chicago Public Schools. There are over 50,000 children in Illinois.
These ideas of this big (and growing) part of the world population are strong in the media and the sources and causes of the views and opinions about this burgeoning sector of the US (and world) population. Without giving away all of the book’s content, I must say, I do not like to tell readers all the most important parts and facts and conclusions of a book. Rather, I
leave the discovery and discussion to the reader to find, consider, and ponder.
What this text does is provide an interesting outline of where our fear of the poor comes from… a clear understanding of the Greek root words used to come up with a term for this fear, and an ethical framework for understanding all of this.
Now, it is up to the reader, the educator, the social worker, and the taxpayer to make sense of the outline, the map, provided here, and develop a better understanding of oneself as we venture out
into the street to help the poor.
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