Editor:
I’m constantly shocked by the level of ignorance and poor excuses for arguments displayed by Tiara Fuller. In her article (“Poor people are milking the government dry,” Aug. 20) she talks about people who are “‘retired for life’ at the age of 27” and accuses welfare recipients of being “a drain on society.”
Yet she offers no support whatsoever for these claims. Nowhere in her article does she cite a single source of information beyond a couple personal anecdotes gleaned in her undoubtedly arduous four months of volunteering. Nowhere does she compare the number of supposedly lazy welfare recipients to the number of those working more than one job and still being unable to make ends meet. Nowhere does she quote a statistic, a study, demographic information or any other source that would imply she was actually researching the topic instead of just spewing rhetoric on paper without thinking. If I were her professor, I’d be supremely disappointed. Furthermore, Fuller attempts to dissuade her naysayers by claiming she’s not “ignorant and privileged” due to the fact that she volunteered for a few months at a homeless shelter.
I have news for you, Tiara: Volunteering for a few months, for the sole purpose of being able to feel better about yourself when you accuse the poor of being lazy, doesn’t make you less ignorant or less privileged. It just makes you more of an elitist snob.
Nick BernardJunior, Political Science