Why the hate towards poor people?

Question

My colleague at work hates poor people and calls them "povs". Is this a bad word? Why do people hate the poor anyways....they dont hurt anyone

Answer 1

He is just ignorant. Tell him he is one step away from being one of them. All he has to do is become sick from a serious illness and lose his job and health care. He will be out on the street quicker than crap through a goose.

Answer 2

Not everybody hates poor people.Me included. The people that hate them are coming from fear. They think the more they distance themselves from those people the less likely they are to be like them. To identify with them would be too close, like if not for the grace of god thing. They want to believe they can never be poor but if you think about it many, many people are about a paycheck or 2 away from being homeless.

Answer 3

Maybe one of the following?

People hate other groups because it's easier to displace the anger of daily life onto an entity they won't be likely to contact.

Some people seem to have this idea that poor people are lazy, stupid or otherwise morally defective and responsible for their own position in life. This way they don't have to feel guilty for not donating to charity or they can feel positive about their own position in life.

Dehumanizing poor people makes them seem less like yourself. This way one protect themselves from the very scary idea they could possibly become poor as well.

Some people feel their tax dollars are going to support the poor and resent sharing or grew up in a household that believed this.

Hating someone else prevents the mind from having to view it's own faults and lends a feeling of superiority.

Answer 4

People hate poor people for the same reasons they hate fat people, people of other races or religions, or gay people. They are afraid of what they don't know, or what they could become. It's easy for a person who lives a comfortable life to make a comment about someone who struggles, because then they don't have to think about whether or not they could handle struggling themselves. I grew up broke, had money, then went broke again. If you can survive being poor, you can survive anything. Wealthy people, or more likely, just comfortable people, find it easier to hold on tightly to what they have, than to look around them and give something to help lift up others.

Answer 5

I think your colleague needs a class about Diversity and Ethics. I think most of us that are thankful with our lives, forget that you can fall down to poverty very quickly. I once was there my self. I do not hate people that are poor. I love them and as a Social Worker try to help them where I can. Most people who live so lavishly, forget how fast we can jump to the other side.
So I think we should not judge others who have less. They try the best they can to sustain in life. One of these days we hope that the imbalance between poor and rich and middle class will not be so trastic anymore.

Answer 6

Its wrong that he hates the poor, but that is his deal. Sometimes the poor do, do wrong things like steal from other people and kill people too. Maybe something bad happened to him with someone that is poor

Answer 7

fear and misunderstanding. humans are terrified of things outside their comfort zones. who wants to be poor? no one. people also associate being poor with being lazy or being stupid or having a mental illness (which we are also afraid of). so many people cant help but be poor, we can't make wild generalizations about peoples misfortunes and that is what we tend to do.

Answer 8

Perhaps it's because there are so damn many of them. The least they could do is not breed.

Answer 9

It's all about fear.