Progressive Era in U.S. politics, from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, represented a rise in charitable giving and a more active role for the federal government in blunting the sharpest abuses of capitalism (passing labor reforms like the minimum wage law, for example, and antitrust statutes). But this era, when colonial expansion was publicly defended through the philosophy of manifest destiny, also modeled the condescending kindness we see in the worst kinds of charity today. This was also the era of forced sterilizations and hospitalizations of people with disabilities. In other words, military invasions in the “best interests” of those being invaded abroad and interventions into the lives of poor people at home, also to “help.”
Entities like the Charity Organization Societies provided aid to the poor while catering to wealthy sensibilities. The New York branch’s Hand-Book for Friendly Visitors among the Poor divided the “worthy cases needing relief” from the “shiftless cases needing counsel, stimulus, and work.” In words that have been echoed by charitable givers a million times since, the handbook advises, “It is well for the visitor to bear in mind the important distinction between poverty resulting from misfortune and that resulting from ignorance or vice.”22
Philanthropy is portrayed as generous, but where did that money come from? Have the Rockefeller and Ford charities washed the blood off of their family names, and should we allow them to? The more than $700 billion held by U.S. foundations is twice stolen. It was stolen the first time by making profit from the work of others (employees or even slaves) and from the earth’s resources. The money was stolen a second time when the wealthy avoided taxes by funneling their fortunes through foundations, which allow them to dictate how the money will be spent.23
As rapper and mogul Jay-Z wrote in his book Decoded: “To some degree charity is a racket in a capitalist system, a way of making our obligations to each other optional, and of keeping poor people feeling a sense of indebtedness to the rich, even if the rich spend every other day exploiting those same people.”24
When charities and other nonprofits seek to “save” poor people, they often end up perpetuating unjust hierarchies. Sixty percent of U.S. nonprofits see their mission as serving people of color. Sixty-three percent say that diversity is a key value of their organization. Yet 93 percent of nonprofit chief executives, 92 percent of their boards, and 82 percent of their staff are white. Thirty percent of nonprofit boards are all-white.25 These statistics suggest that the people directing and funding these organizations have absorbed the idea that people of color are not the experts in what they need.
Despite mission statements that nobly describe commitment to racial justice, many of these “liberal” or humanitarian organizations are just a couple staffing changes (or less) from having the look of a white supremacist organization. And if you don’t think any people of color are qualified to work on your project to help people of color, are you sure you’re not a white supremacist? What is your definition of white supremacy if it does not include undervaluing the work, intelligence, and experience of people of color?
In my experience with unpaid and less formalized grassroots activism, it is often those who have the most leisure time—which is generally those with the most privilege—who end up being in leadership positions. Especially when there are no official leaders.26 And after they “generously” give their time, they are the first to use that experience on their resume, on a research project, or just to brag about to their friends. “The poor have long provided cultural currency to the rich,” writes scholar Gabriel Winant. “The social attitudes and political ideology of elites have understood the ghetto as a credibility gold mine.”27
Charity is often an expression of a belief that current injustices will continue forever. “The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves,” writes Paulo Friere in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. “In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well.” Friere continues, “An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes that nourish false charity.”28
This injustice arises with even with basic acts of generosity, such as serving free food. Author and scholar Janet Poppendieck writes that soup kitchens help a right-wing agenda of shrinking government. “By harnessing a wealth of volunteer effort and donations, [food distribution programs make] private programs appear cheaper and more cost effective than their public counterparts, thus reinforcing an ideology of voluntarism that obscures the fundamental destruction of rights,” she writes. “And, because food programs are logistically demanding, their maintenance absorbs the attention and energy of many of the people most concerned about the poor, distracting them from the larger issues of distributional politics. It is not an accident that poverty grows deeper as our charitable responses to it multiply.”29
Referencing scholar Jennifer Wolch, Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls this nonprofit infrastructure of care the “shadow state.” She notes that each of these organizations operate “without significant political clout, forbidden by law to advocate for systemic change, and bound by public rules and non-profit charters to stick to its mission or get out of business and suffer legal consequences if it strays along the way.”30
Poppendieck writes that in New York City there were thirty emergency food providers in 1979, and more than fifteen times as many just eight years later. By 1991 that number had climbed to 730, and by 1997 nearly a thousand.31 During this time, the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations were slashing government benefits for the poor, and the rise of nonprofit services like food pantries contributed to “society’s failure to grapple in meaningful ways with poverty.”
“Massive charitable endeavor serves to relieve pressure for more fundamental solutions,” writes Poppendieck. “It works pervasively on the cultural level by serving as sort of a ‘moral safety valve’; it reduces the discomfort evoked by visible destitution in our midst by creating the illusion of effective action and offering us myriad ways of participating in it. It creates a culture of charity that normalizes destitution and legitimates personal generosity as a response to major social and economic dislocation.”32
Of course, when food, housing, and other basic needs become a gift instead of a right, they are subject to all of the prejudices of the generous. The gift can be taken back from those who are not deserving or grateful enough. Those who are too decadent or perverse or lazy or rebellious may not qualify to receive the gift in the first place.
Many organizations that help provide housing to homeless people speak of “housing readiness,” in which people must show they are “ready” to have homes. But what about the reverse of that question? Is anyone ready for homelessness? Should any of us have to be? If we recognize housing as a right, that eliminates the question of whether people are “ready” to receive it.
George H. W. Bush launched his “thousand points of light” volunteer program in 1989 to encourage voluntarism like that seen in food pantries. George W. Bush, in 2002, continued that legacy, saying, “My call . . . is for every American to commit at least two years, 4,000 hours over the rest of your lifetime, to the service of your neighbors and your nation.” While the president declared the importance of volunteering, his advisor Grover Norquist spoke of shrinking government small enough that he could “drown it in the bathtub.”33 The conservative celebration of volunteers aligns with the policy goal of destruction of the social safety net. The more private citizens volunteer, the less the government has to spend.
As Louisiana environmental justice advocate Monique Harden noted to me, when George W. Bush visited New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he came dressed casually, with his sleeves rolled up, and posed for a photo-op helping
