For today, I am going to ignore the fact that in under 40 hours I will begin traveling back to the U.S. and people will be waking up to prepare to vote in an election where Romney could end up being the next President of the USA.
The first time I heard the term "dumpster diving", I had a negative visceral reaction to it. Immediately, I hated the concept and found it difficult not to judge those who supported it due to their clear ignorance of how their privilege alone allows this to be an activity to be proud of and hold on a pedestal. After holding an event for this at the co-op that I worked in as a staff last year, I feel the same way, if not stronger.
Holding "dumpster diving" in high esteem is like laughing at poverty in the face of millions who suffer directly from the inability to find food on a regular basis because they cannot find work or job that can adequately sustain the needs of oneself or one's family. Young 20 something adults, or children, go "dumpster diving". It is a great way to bypass having a high paying job as you travel the world as a young person. This allows that young person to stretch the money that they receive from their parents, or if they are not that lucky, from the bank account they acquired while in college or working in a start-up tech company for 6 months, for as long as possible in a way that will seem trendy and foreign to those in their friend circle.
Would you say the same for a father of two that has to go through the garbage in NYC to find a meal for his family? Do you think he would prefer to tell his children that after work he first needs to go "dumpster diving" to find dinner, or he needs to bring them with him so that they can search as many places as possible just to find a meal that will sustain them all?
"Dumpster diving" trivializes the strain that real people, of all races and ethnicities face when they are living in poverty. They do not have classes that teach them which food is safe to eat from which kind of garbage disposal, how long a food can be open to air before it is susceptible to life-threatening bacteria, or how to create a well balanced diet based off of what you find. But people who want to make a hobby of "dumpster diving" do.
This activity also further stigmatizes those individuals that rely on shifting through garbage for SOMETHING to eat, SOMETHING to piece together to find a semblance of what the average person would call a meal. "They" are the ones milking everything they can get from welfare and are still behaving like animals on the street, but when young rich people do it it is environmentally friendly and a call for a change in every day behavior.
The last thing I want to say about "dumpster diving" is that it is a choice. Something that those young people choose to do from their own volition. No external forces are actually forcing them to live this way. People who live in poverty do not have the luxury of this choice, and it is not a transient phase that they pursue in order to broaden their minds. They are trying to survive, for that moment, for one more day, and perhaps for a future in which they don't have to struggle.
No one will spit or yell demeaning slogans about poverty to a young person who is clearly "dumpster diving", they have the privilege of economic tourism and the privilege to see this activity as pleasure rather than survival with a deep social stigma.
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