categoryNarrative

Not Like Us

Innuendo, association, and coded rhetoric conspire to cast people in poverty as bogeymen threatening society from a shadowy otherworld. In this narrative, people in poverty are sick, criminal, dirty, addicted, homeless, foreign, or otherwise not like "us." The solution is "poor people" just disappearing: they leave, get locked up, or deported. The tone is generally matter of fact, targeting fear and disgust.