Do a majority of white posters on here have any idea what poverty is like?

[DemPGH]

Probably not, but who has no idea what poverty even is are the people who say in one way or another that "it is your fault if you are poor." What I think has happened is that there are a lot of cultural forces in society (religion and corporate/advertising, namely) that go to great lengths to foster the idea that if you're poor it's your fault, you haven't tried hard enough, you're lazy, a spendthrift, etc. Since that attitude is so pervasive and has largely been bought into by people who are middle class or even lower middle class, I really don't think so, and it has a lot to do with the prism through which they see or are told about the issue. Corporate culture also goes to great lengths to foster resentment of union workers as freeloaders, etc., and so on, so it's all not really surprising.