Abstract
The Shame Game: Overturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative, a timely publication given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is an interesting text for anyone open to understanding more about the current widespread poverty narrative in the United States and the United Kingdom (UK), a story that both blames and shames those who experience poverty. The central thesis is supported by shocking statistics, powerful quotes from policy experts and politicians, an intimate personal narration from the author, and extensive interviews conducted by Mary O’Hara, award-winning journalist and creator of Project Twist (https://www.projecttwistit.com/), an online platform focused on changing how we dialogue about poverty.
The author successfully demonstrates how government officials and the media stigmatize, create stereotypes, and falsify data so that those who live in poverty are viewed as lazy and undeserving, through a harmful narrative that plays a significant role in perpetuating and sustaining poverty. O’Hara carefully delineates a core component of the toxic poverty narrative in that society and corporations blame individuals and communities for their plight, but O’Hara confidently counters this argument with the assertion that capitalism created this dilemma and the government is now refusing to take responsibility for developing solutions. This toxic poverty narrative becomes an ingrained monolith for policy makers and social workers across all levels of clinical practice—and for those who actively suffer those afflictions associated with poverty—unemployment, health disparities, eviction or homelessness, trauma, fear, and food insecurity, with no relief in sight.
The passion and vulnerability expressed by the author’s tone successfully challenges the reader to engage with the material using an introspective lens. O’Hara’s writing is inclusive across gender identity, age, educational experience, class, and race and encourages a strengths perspective. At times, this book appears somewhat disorganized, redundant, and perhaps too ambitious by combining personal poverty experiences from the author with statistical and historical summaries often in the same chapter, including many repetitive quotes, often distracting the reader. An attempt to include data from both the UK and United States, to argue that these two powerful nations mirror one another’s bullying toward the poor, this effort in its current form serves to dilute the argument. Perhaps this disjointed writing is intended to parallel the unpredictable nature of poverty.
A crucial theme in this book is that people who have lived-poverty experiences are rarely asked to be a part of the solution. I finished the book wishing for more discussion around this topic culminating in the final chapters exploring this dilemma in more depth. A hopeful chapter centered on young people writing their own stories and breaking down the barriers around poverty and increasing connection stood out. As a social work educator, I found that O’Hara’s book challenged me to reevaluate how socioeconomic class structures and the harmful stereotypes around the oppression of poverty and capitalism are archetypes and perpetuated within social work education and social work practice. Several chapters could serve as catalysts for important discussions at the intersections among systemic racism, lack of a living wage, and systemic poverty. For example, “What? There Are Poor People in the Richest Nation on Earth” or “A Twisted Tale: Evolution of the Poverty Narrative” would benefit either bachelor of social work or master of social work students in a seminar or policy class. This book challenges notions around accessibility and whether we create an authentic space for an alternative poverty narrative to emerge with clients and students in our community mental health centers and social work institutions. The chapter “Changing Times: Fighting Poverty, Not the Poor” would be a strong addition for an upper level seminar or for practitioners to read and reflect on their practice. While I hoped for more direction, this book ends with a call to action, prompting the reader to wonder how to join the cause to transform society’s toxic poverty deficit narrative into one of inclusion and structural systems change.
