How much is your Future Worth?

Why are we more angry at the people trying to survive than at the systems that made them poor in the first place?I've seen the tweets about how stupid people who sell their votes are. I've heard "we deserve the government we have." I've seen people say they're throwing their future away for "just" rice and tomato paste.What bothers me most is that many of the people typing these things aren't hungry. They're not wondering if they'll see tomorrow. They're not wondering what their children will eat. They have data and they have the internet. Maybe they've never been poor, or maybe they were, and they're trying so hard to distance themselves from that reality that they've forgotten what it felt like. And maybe they're struggling financially, maybe they're still rooming with friends. Maybe they're eating from hand to mouth. You don't have to be rich to look down on someone poorer than you. No matter how privileged or not privileged you think you are, we're not better than the people who sell their votes.Now, hear me out. I'm not saying it's okay to sell your vote. I'm asking why the scrutiny and the insults land on poor people, and not on the politicians who buy votes or the systems designed to keep people poor. Vote buying becomes easier when people can't escape poverty. A small bag of rice, oil and ten k may look like nothing when you know you'll eat tomorrow. It may even be what you spend on one meal. But for the person selling, nothing is certain. Not food, not shelter, not money. That ten k could sort out food for a week and buy time to hustle for the next one. That bag of rice can be the difference between a child eating dinner and a child going to bed hungry.We don't get to sit comfortably outside someone's circumstances and decide that what they did to survive makes them stupid, morally inferior, or undeserving of empathy.Politicians are liars, and only someone who is alive can see a better economy, better standards of living, better everything. Yes, the ten k will finish. But it can be the difference between life and death. It's only the person wearing the shoe that knows where it pinches, abi how dem dey talk am?It's easy to say poor people are the reason we're not progressing when you're living in a self contain, or still living with your parents.Now, you may be asking: isn't selling your vote bad? It is. 100%. It undermines our democracy and it can keep us stuck in the same cycle of bad governance. But something can be wrong and understandable at the same time. Two things can be true at once. You can understand why someone takes the money without pretending that taking it has no consequences.And poor people are not helpless. They have agency. Poor people are not stupid, and poverty doesn't erase responsibility. They're making what they believe is a rational choice. Besides, they can collect the rice and still vote for their preferred candidate.The politicians, though, need to be held accountable. They're exploiting people who are directly affected by their actions and their inaction. That's where I think more of our anger should be directed. So before you type the next tweet calling people stupid for taking rice, ask who made the rice worth taking.<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1604451.jpg"/>

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