Optimism Deficient?

Adam Shepard was sick of hearing the impoverished in America whine and complain. He was “frustrated with the materialistic individualism that seems to be shaping every thirteen-year-old to be the next teen diva,” Shepard wrote in the introduction to Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. In a move that is reminiscent of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Shepard boarded a train to Charleston, S.C., with nothing more than $25 in his pocket, the clothes on his back, a sleeping bag, and a tarp.

Shepard set out to disprove books like Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. He wanted to achieve the so-called American Dream—without using his college degree, friends, or exemplary credit history—proving that it is still possible in America to break one’s way out of poverty. Shepard gave himself just one year to break from poverty and homelessness. Completion of his project would be considered successful if Shepard was able to own a functioning automobile, be living in a furnished apartment, have $2,500, and have the prospects to go to school or start his own business.

Of course, after just 10 months of getting a manual labor job at a moving company, Shepard achieves his goals: he owns a beat-up truck, lives in an apartment that is fully furnished (with cast-offs from customers), and has almost $5,000 to his name. Shepard attributes his success to his can-do spirit and work ethic. There are plenty of people that might not have such a “can do” attitude after living in abject poverty for years.

Shepard may not have started out with much, but his experience was free of many of the problems of the impoverished today: He is physically and mentally healthy, he has a strong education and upbringing, and his "homeless" situation was always temporary. Shepard acknowledges such criticisms, but he fails to acknowledge that he didn’t have to face many of the systemic and institutional problems of racism (especially since his experiment took place in the American South), sexism, homophobia, or growing up in poverty.

According to a report by the Center for American Progress, 37 million Americans live below the poverty line. The same report shows that while poverty afflicts 8.7 percent of non-Hispanic white individuals in America, 21.4 percent of both African Americans and Hispanics are afflicted. So it goes without saying that Shepard might have had a different experience had he not been white.

Shepard argues that a person’s background and environment does much to shape them and their lifestyles. Shepard seems to attribute inequality to “poor attitudes”—a child that grows up in an environment with poor attitudes will likely grow up to be an adult with poor attitudes. In other words, Shepard says what is really plaguing America is a severe lack of optimism. Shepard himself is the product of two loving, educated parents, a middle-class upbringing, and a college education (in business management) in Massachusetts on a basketball scholarship. Shepard says that he didn’t use his college degree to benefit his circumstances—but it’s impossible, of course, that he did not make use of his education.

But there’s more than just poverty in the United States. There’s also debt. The Consumer Federation of America estimates that credit card debt in America totaled $850 billion in 2007. Shepherd also didn’t have to worry about college loans, having gone to school on an athletic scholarship. FinAid reports that 65.7 percent of 4-year undergraduate students graduate with debt. The average student loan debt is $19,237. Without having to worry about loan balances, Shepherd’s experiment wasn’t realistic.

In a similar critique to Ehrenreich’s book, it is also important to remember that Shepard’s situation was merely temporary. He had an emergency credit card in his pocket, a comfortable home, supportive relatives, and a college degree to fall back on. If his experiment had failed, all he would have suffered was a bruised ego. Shepard didn’t have to worry about the real, deep-rooted stress and desperation that poverty inflicts, probably making his situation easier to cope with. This makes his experience more of a story of tourism rather than a real experience.

While at the moving company, Shepard had heard legendary tales of Derrick, a mover who could lift anything despite his trim build. Shepard’s description of his time working with Derrick depicts a focused, hard-working man that is striving towards a better life for himself and his family. Unlike Shepard, Derrick is black, from a poor, rural town, and has a wife and child to support. Derrick has succeeded in becoming the most desired mover in Charleston and had purchased a home for his family with the help from the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, a nonprofit that helps people with faulty credit or without the means to pay closing costs purchase a home, as well as understand the real estate market and process of purchasing a home.

Derrick’s success was thanks not just to optimism, but thanks to antipoverty groups that help people in concrete ways. Derrick’s triumphs and trials, rather than Shepard’s, would have made a much more interesting testimonial to the American Dream’s feasibility, as well as a more realistic picture of everything that’s needed to combat poverty in America today.

Kayla Walker is a recent graduate of Hofstra University and a former Publications Intern at Campus Progress.

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