I interviewed 30 poor people and anti-poverty activists and incorporated their thinking about it and their analysis of it. This is new for a book on poverty. The first thing about challenging poor-bashing that everyone I interviewed said is that you have to understand that you are not to blame. You have to understand the economic system causing poverty and how poverty is legislated. You have to learn about how there is enough wealth to end poverty and that people benefit from poor-bashing and poverty.
Poverty is government policy and anybody that is bashed becomes cheaper in the labour market.
Ultimately we need to unite campaigns about poor-bashing with coalitions against racism. The most important thing in uniting with other anti-oppression groups is to say what's on their mind and to learn about other forms of oppression. We need a lot of listening but in the end we need to build a coalition. If we stop blaming poor or other oppressed people for poverty, we can expose the policies, laws, and economic system that force millions of people to compete against each other, driving down wages and creating more poverty. Ending poor-bashing isn't just a matter of being nice.