I am a huge fan of The Meme.
If by chance you are on social media, but you don’t recognize the word, I’m talking about these things. Actually, those types of memes aren’t my favorite ones. Somecards are the best. They fucking rock.
What do memes have to do with the price of coke in Columbia? Well, I’ll tell you.
Back in April, WordPress Blogger Liz Boltz Ranfeld, a liberal Christian, published a post, “When Christians Despise the Poor.” She posts often, but this one remains her most popular. In it, she talks about her disappointment and frustration about the fact that the poor-bashing memes she sees in her Facebook memes are posted by fellow Christians.
Here are some of the ones I’ve seen in the past:
Of course, these memes are being posted by people who believe the mythology of the social safety net: that it fosters dependence on the government and therefore continues through the generations of a family; that it provides a comfortable living and therefore is a disincentive to work; that an individual’s tax dollar goes mostly to such programs; that the vast majority of recipients can work; and that fraud is rampant throughout the system.
I have a list of 47 things to get done today, so I can’t take the time to pull up all the stats. That will happen on another day, in a future post. But for now, trust me.
It’s bullshit. Every single word of it.
Now that we’ve completely disproven all of the fantasies above, we come to the next question: Who is posting this crap?
Christians.
Yep.
I don’t think I have any actual statistics on that. When I have time, I’ll Google it to verify. But I’ll bet my right tit that it’s so. Perhaps not 100% of the time. But MOST of the time.
When Christians are called out on naughty behaviors — especially those that go against the very book they claim to follow — too often, their responses go something like this:
“But the Bible ALSO says…”
“Christians have a variety of opinions, but…”
“Christians aren’t perfect. Just forgiven.”
That last one has infuriated me forever, including during the 90% of my life that I was a devout Christian. In college, my Fundamentalist roommate had it on a poster, complete with a picture of an apple with a bite out of it.
Why, here it is on a license plate frame:
Do you know what this saying says to me?
“I’ve got my lawyer. His name is Jesus. And because of him, I can do whatever the fuck I want. You’ve got a different lawyer? Or perhaps none at all? Enjoy hell, asshole.”
But it gets worse, because most of the Christians who post such memes don’t think they ARE doing anything wrong. In fact, they simply have to look around them at the high-profile conservative Protestant church leaders and politicians (especially the politicians!) to validate their opinions. When they do, they see that apparently, poor-bashing IS the default Christian position. After all, they point out that in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, it says, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
THERE! SEE???
Of course, they ignore the massive number of verses in that same book that require that the more fortunate help the less.
But, you know. Verses, schmerses.
At any rate. I have PLENTY to say about the actual reasons why people wind up needing the social safety net; the ways it works and the ways it doesn’t; the actual costs of social welfare vs. corporate welfare; the incredible difficulty of actually surviving on these programs, and the fact that just in the past few days, I panicked and virtually became suicidal when it looked like I might have to apply for some of them (today, I’m 98% sure that I won’t; but I still have some terror in me that I might after all).
Those comments are for another day, when time allows.
But I WILL say this about the memes. When I was a Christian and most of my FB friends were Christians a well, I saw these poor-bashing memes in my feed all the time.
Today I am both a Democratic Socialist and a Secular Humanist. (Boo!) Most of my FB friends are unbelievers of one stripe or another. Those who are Christians are very liberal and/or socialist ones.
And you know what? I never see those memes in my feed anymore.
Ever.
XO C
the baby humanist 