Her name is not ‘those people’ By FAYE WHITBECK, Staff Writer

Embodied within even the most compassionate of intentions are the misunderstandings, misinformation, misguided attitudes and stigmas that mark those living below the poverty line faster than the sizzle of a red-hot branding iron.

Among those who would like the public to understand not only the verities of the poor, but also the virtues, is a woman who has lived this reality for a long, long time.

The merging of her experience, intelligence and talent has provided a rare and distinctive voice for those whose daily struggles are habitually branded with degrading labels.

She is poor. She is disabled. But her name is not “those people.”

Her name is Julia Dinsmore.

For 25 years, Dinsmore has worked to make a difference in the trenches of destitution by providing an authentic perspective from “those of us who’ve been stuck there.”

Dinsmore’s work was ignited quite by accident when she wrote the powerful poem, “My Name Is Not ‘Those People,’” inspired by the two-word dehumanizing reference made to a group of low-income mothers, but hardly uncommon. The connotation “those people,” which is often, sometimes innocently, used by employees in public systems and others not living in poverty, implies an inherent set of characteristics which isolate the poor.

Since then, Dinsmore’s articulations as one who has lived in the landscape of poverty all her life, have enlightened state commissions; trained members of the Clinton administration; sent her around the nation including all of the Ivy League colleges to speak and deliver her “edu-poetic” performances; found her on a Washington D.C. stage with Martin Luther King III at the national Coalition for the Homeless; motivated famous artists to collaborate on a music CD; and inspired American actor Danny Glover to record her poem.

“It spread around the world in such a way that I was invited to tell my story,” she said of the poem which is now known worldwide.

Ten master theses have been written on Dinsmore’s poem which is part of the book: “My Name is Child of God ... A First-Person Look at Poverty.” The late Sen. Paul Wellstone read the poem on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Lawyer Benjamin White used it in an award-winning legal defense.

Her artistic talents the vehicle, Dinsmore intends to drive a social transformation with her workshops and presentations around the nation. She has been featured in stories and broadcasts across America.

Still — Dinsmore survives on $600 per month disability.

Still — she is homeless.

Undaunted, Dinsmore’s mission is to help others understand the effects of classism and poverty, and to heal the wounds of generational poverty and systemic abuse.

Via conference call from a temporarily offered residence in Minnetonka (a gesture which kept Dinsmore from moving into her van), her candid and comedic commentary is engaging. In the conversation with Dinsmore and The Journal are Kootasca Community Engagement Manager Cynthia Jaksa, and Fiscal Affairs Director Diane Peterson.

The community is encouraged to hear Dinsmore, also a singer/songwriter, slated to perform at noon Thursday for an hour at Backus Community Center. As part of Kootasca’s annual meeting, a complimentary sandwich and salad buffet for those who attend begins at 11 a.m. in the Backus Reception Room. Public service workers are also urged to hear Dinsmore’s presentation.

Crack open a conversation with this woman, and she has a lot to say in her gritty, well-used voice.

Classism in a society “underpins all the other ‘isms’” and “class is culture,” she asserts. Asked about the idea that a class system is perhaps the natural order of societies, Dinsmore instantly rejects the notion.

“That’s an invention of man,” she replies. “It’s a plague upon humanity that hurts everyone, and is based on greed for wealth and resources.” Dinsmore also believes that the class system has brainwashed most Americans so persuasively that they “won’t even vote for a fair tax system.”

Born in south Minneapolis, Dinsmore’s childhood was marked by frequent moves, chaos, and episodes of violence — her mother struggled with mental illness, her father with alcoholism. As an adult, Dinsmore has struggled to support herself and her three sons, largely due to insurmountable medical needs and expenses. She has lupus, and two of her adult sons continue to suffer from the devastating effects of traumatic brain injuries compounded by mental illness, and other health conditions.

In spite of the fact that she is a published author but has never lived above the poverty line, Dinsmore’s ability to put a comedic twist on a dead-serious topic is perhaps one of her most unusual qualities. She quips that her late mother used to tell her, “Get a real job, there’s no money in poverty.”

Just the titles of Dinsmore’s workshops convey her colorful perspectives: “Generational Poverty 101,” “Overcoming Affluenza,” and “My Name is Not Those People, and Neither is Yours,” are talk titles which also imply that poverty’s reasons shouldn’t all be attached to its victims.

Dinsmore cracks up the conference with her musings on her current lodging situation in an affluent neighborhood of Minnetonka. She finds it hysterical that she recently joined a “right-wing, neoconservative Bible study” on her block. “It’s a very scary coffee klatch,” she says playfully. “Cause I’m a left-leaning libertarian social capitalist.

“But I’ve received help getting my car fixed, and food when I didn’t have any — and they’re all blown away and happy to have something to pray about besides a prom dress!”

Jokes aside, Dinsmore enumerates the lesser known attributes of the culture of the poor such as the survival skills and learned strengths that the lifestyle cultivates. She says there are discoveries that have evolved from poverty which have never been tapped. “I like to talk about our strengths,” Dinsmore said, “They’re undervalued.

“We practice hospitality; our houses are over-full. We share our last food and practice generosity in a beautiful and profound way,” she said. She adds that a “cloak of silence” around poverty has stifled promotion of the goodness that comes from having too little — things such as tolerance for other cultures and races; profound ways of caring and care giving; economic and expedient ways of accomplishing things; generosity; midwifery and reliance on elders, teachers and neighbors who are the repositories of knowledge.

But the poet does not whitewash the grim environment of the poor who are unavoidably associated with an industry where words such as “inadequate,” “problem case to be managed,” and “lazy welfare mother” as well as the idea that “IQ (intelligence) equals income” are inescapable. The terms need not be spoken directly in order to harm those to whom they are directed.

“The shame built upon us is so devastating,” she explained, “that we have internalized it.” She said the poor begin to reflect on their predicament “as if there were enough jobs; as if it was our parents’ fault.” Dinsmore says the nation has a need to “scapegoat people in poverty.”

“I don’t wear my shame,” she continued. “But it’s very crippling. When you’re in welfare generationally, learned behaviors are centered in victimhood.”

Dinsmore cites Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs which predicts how major life stressors can result in possible addictions or early death. She says the poor deal with major lifetime stressors — every single day.

“Every person in poverty has post-traumatic syndrome,” she said.

Dinsmore was asked to explain how so much success — books, CDs, videos, engagements — could result in such minimal monetary compensation (of which any amount also affects her disability assistance). “They expect the poor people to do everything for free,” she said, only half-joking that “academia owes her.” Letting out a belly laugh, she says, “I would really like an honorary degree.”

She has never met Danny Glover, and allows her poem to circulate, without copyright, because of the good it does. She receives a meager percentage of the sales of the CDs on which she collaborated as well as her book which is available online at Amazon.

Neither has the poor, thus far, benefited monetarily from any of the exposure.

“My dream is to earn enough money so I can get myself situated and help my kids and grandkids,” she said.

As assistance programs continue to be cut in the Legislature, the situation for those already poor becomes impossibly grimmer. But Dinsmore marches on with what she calls a “spiritual recovery program.” The social divide, addictions and hopelessness have set in to a new degree because of the increasing dysfunction of human relationships, says Dinsmore. The breakdown of family support systems threaten everyone, she says, and therein is also culpable for some of poverty’s ills, she concludes. “We must build strong relationships in the community. Our ‘gated ghettos’ won’t get us anywhere.”

She says her involvement in community action events such as Kootasca’s helps to mitigate the damage which has been done to the poor and ignites a structural change.

“But it is young people who will be the ones to make a structural change, and find new ways to help each other” she said. “Relationship building will prevent so much needless harm, when we gather around the children in supportive ways.”

Dinsmore said she’s confident she is making a difference with the “exponential energy” drawn from the next generation, which will “support an upliftment of humanity.”

“There isn’t anything we can’t solve,” she’s determined. “We tolerate poverty as if it has to be this way. We can decide — we can.”

My name is not “Those People.”

I am a loving woman, a mother in pain,

giving birth to the future, where my babies

have the same chance to thrive as anyone.

My name is not “Inadequate.”

I did not make my husband leave — he chose to,

and chooses not to pay child support.

Truth is though, there isn’t a job base

for all fathers to support their families.

While society turns its head, my children pay the price.

My name is not “Problem and Case to Be Managed.”

I am a capable human being and citizen, not a client.

The social service system can never replace the compassion

and concern of loving Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Fathers,

Cousins, Community — all the bonded people who need to be

but are not present to bring children forward to their potential.

My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”

If the unwaged work of parenting, homemaking and community

building was factored into the Gross National Product, my work

would have untold value. And I wonder why my middle-class sisters

whose husbands support them to raise their children are glorified

— and they don’t get called lazy and dependent.

My name is not “Ignorant, Dumb or Uneducated.”

I live with an income of $621 with $169 in food stamps.

Rent is $585. That leaves $36 a month to live on. I am such a genius

at surviving that I could balance the state budget in an hour.

Never mind that there is a lack of living-wage jobs.

Never mind that it is impossible to be the sole emotional,

social and economic support to a family.

Never mind that parents are losing their children to the gangs, drugs,

stealing, prostitution, social workers, kidnapping, the streets, the predator.

Forget about putting money into schools — just build more prisons.

My name is not “Lay Down and Die Quietly.”

My love is powerful and my urge to keep my children alive will never stop.

All children need homes and people who love them. They need

safety and the chance to be the people they were born to be.

The wind will stop before I let my children become a statistic.

Before you give in to the urge to blame me,

the blame that lets us go blind and unknowing into

the isolation that disconnects us, take another look.

Don’t go away.

For I am not the problem, but the solution.

~Julia Dinsmore

Poverty in Koochiching

The Koochiching County Community Assessment (www.kootasca.org) reports that more than 13 percent of adults and 19 percent of children lived below the federal poverty guidelines in Koochiching County in 2007, an approximate 33 percent increase since the 2000 census. A new report is imminent.

Also, 38 percent of Koochiching households with children are the working poor which means their household income is no more than 18.5 percent of poverty guidelines ($21,200 total income including assistance for family of four in 2008) while the Jobs Now Coalition concludes that a family needs at least twice poverty guidelines to meet basic needs, without assistance.

19 percent of Koochiching County children lived below the federal poverty guidelines in 2007

If you go:

WHAT: Presentation by Julia Dinsmore, poet, singer/songwriter, humanitarian

WHEN: Noon, Thursday • Backus Auditorium • Free of charge

• Free sandwich and salad buffet, 11 a.m. • Backus Reception Room

WHO: Public officials and employees as well as the community at large are urged to attend.

State Rep. Tom Anzelc is scheduled to be in attendance.