Interview by Rachel Cooke Sunday 21 September 2014 06.02 BST
Linda Tirado, 32, was attending college and working in two low-paid jobs when she first posted her essay about America’s poverty trap on an online forum. The post went viral, and Tirado extended her essay into a book while still working at a pancake shop near her home in Utah. She now lives in Washington DC, with her husband, a former marine, and two small daughters. She works as a new-media activist and journalist.
Were you expecting what happened after your essay was published? Oh, God, no! I was just on a message board. I was just talking to my friends the same way I’d done for many years. Then I went to bed, and then I went to work. It took me about two weeks to realise I was awake because I was pretty sure I was having a really fucked-up dream. There is no processing what happens when the internet looks at you and says: it’s your turn. It was insane: people were outside my house, they were calling my elderly relatives, I got 20,000 emails in a week. I still have no idea why it was this piece at this moment; it’s nothing me and my friends haven’t been saying for years. I don’t understand why it was controversial. Period.
After the initial fuss, some journalists began muck-raking, trying to prove that you weren’t what you said you were. How did that feel?
I’m not going to recommend it as a lifestyle choice. I lost a ton of weight in three weeks. If you need a crash diet, go viral. Whatever it was I managed to capture had enough power truly to upset some people. A lot of them hoped I was a poor little rich girl, living in a McMansion. Emotionally, it would have been easier to deal with. But I’ve never claimed to be anything that I’m not. Guys, I called the thing “Why I make terrible decisions”. So, I gave my welfare records to the Washington Post. Those things, and the teeth video, closed it down [in her essay, Tirado wrote that her teeth had rotted because she could not afford dental care, and that this made her unsuitable for working front-of-house in restaurants and offices; when this was disputed she posted a video online [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/linda-tirado_n_4381014.html ] in which the ugly gaps in her teeth can clearly be seen]. The trouble is that a lot of people simply don’t understand the stratification in the lower classes. I wasn’t born in Appalachia with no running water. At Burger King I made $28,000 a year. Yes, you can survive on that money. But that’s not the point. It’s a 90-hour week. What is your life like while you’re surviving? Can you keep a family on it?
In your book you say the rich are afraid of the poor. Do you think fear played a part in the media’s treatment of you?
In America we have this myth that if you deserve it, you will have it. We’re afraid to look at our downtrodden because it undercuts that myth. There is a fear of the poor that is uniquely American. It’s especially hard to look at someone who could be one of their kids – someone like me who’s white and intelligent – and see them as poor. When the crash happened, there was a panic among the rich because suddenly wealth wasn’t only to do with how hard you’d worked. It could be taken away! They got really fearful. So much of Americans’ self-image is based on what we own and how we present ourselves.
How has your life changed for the better?
Well, I got the book deal, and I started being invited to meetings and stuff. But now I’m actually angrier than I was before because, God, this life is so easy! I haven’t done a day of work since I quit International House of Pancakes.
Can you make life as a writer and activist pay?
Money from the book deal has helped me pay off some stuff. But I don’t belong in the world of Dior and Calvin Klein. I don’t need to make much money to do what I want to do. I’m used to $28,000 a year, and if I can make that in this world, it will be cool.
Did you have any qualms about writing the book in such a way as to suggest that you’re still working in the low-wage economy?
I did worry about it a little. But then I thought: look, I was in this situation for the greater part of my life; I can still say “we”. I was poor as shit when I was writing it. Once the book comes out, I’ll start being more careful about using “we” because clearly I am no longer among the ranks of Burger King workers.
You claim that the poor are more generous than the rich. Isn’t it dangerous to make these kinds of generalisations? Doesn’t that make you as bad as those who, say, insist the poor are just lazy?
That’s true! The poor are more generous. They’ve done studies. Look, if I’d had more time, the book would be way more perfect than it is. But, also, these are my impressions. They don’t have to be fair, or even true. This is how we, the poor, feel. Reality is perception, right?
Why do you think, as you say in your book, so many poor people vote against their own best interests?
You’re assuming people feel any sort of connection to the system. I have a very close friend who votes Republican like clockwork. He understands the party doesn’t do much that is likely to help him as someone who might need welfare. So, as a social conservative, he’s going to vote according to which party supports his views on abortion, because that’s a thing that matters to him and he feels he can get movement on it, there will be a direct effect. Whereas if he votes on an economic issue, it’s just a different bunch of rich people doing a bunch of rich people things. It’s a question of marginalisation and trust. We [the poor] don’t trust anybody.
Why do so many people still buy the lie that the poor have children in order to get money from the state?
When rich people, and even just middle-class people, look at poor people what they’re thinking is: they’re lazy. All of us are conmen, cunning like rats. But it’s frigging ridiculous. Nobody is going to sign up for a full year of colic for two grand, no matter how poor they are. It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t get more money for having more kids. You must give up work, and therefore money, in order to qualify for benefits, and even then it doesn’t come as cash. In the US, it comes as food stamps, or coupons. We’re not getting a cheque. People just don’t understand how welfare works.
The journalist Barbara Ehrenreich [author of Nickel and Dimed, an acclaimed account of her attempt to survive in low-wage jobs] has been a great supporter, hasn’t she?
She has been incredible. She is gracious with her time and energy. The foreword she wrote for my book stirs me a lot. She’s a heroine of mine. But a few people reached out to me. Another was the comedian Tom Arnold. He told me to trust that this was happening, to make the most of it.
What do you make of Fast Food Forward, the group that is attempting to unionise fast-food workers, organising walkouts and marches?
It has been very effective; in some states the minimum wage has been raised. But the corporate owners in fast food answer to their franchisees. They set the wages. The question is: how do we make the franchisees come up with a system that works for their employees? Still, the fact that people are doing this is nothing but a net good for America, and perhaps the rest of the world in a global economy. I also want to say this: the brass balls of these people! The amount of courage it takes a minimum-wage worker to walk out, knowing they will be retaliated against. These people are the bravest I’ve seen in some time. They’re blacklisting themselves.
I know you’ve been in Ferguson recently. What does the situation there [civil unrest has followed the shooting of a young black man by police] tell us about America in the wider sense?
I’ve been hanging out with these kids. They’re called Lost Voices. They are camping out and refusing to leave until the indictment comes down. And they talk about marginalisation, and about rage, and about not understanding why people don’t give them credit for being human. Sometimes they talk about jobs, too. St Louis is one of the most segregated places in America. What struck me was that when we outsiders said “We can’t believe the police are doing this on camera”, people were mostly just shocked that we were shocked.
Now you’re in the public eye, have you had your (controversial) teeth fixed?
Actually, I’m turning that into a project. So… no, not yet. But I will say my shampoo is much nicer now. I’ve also had three new tattoos. The TV people don’t like those at all. They make me wear a jacket.
Q&A star Duncan Storrar overcomes trauma to pose fresh questions
Date July 2, 2016
Neil McMahon
[ Excellent video embedded ] 3:09 Duncan Storrar opens up about backlash Duncan questioned higher earner tax cuts on Q&A and in return was persecuted in the media. But he never did get an answer to his question.
-- INSERT: QandA Duncan Storrar
--
He was first declared a hero, then hounded and humiliated and driven into hiding, in despair.
But now Duncan Storrar, the man whose Q&A question defined the election campaign at its outset, has emerged to challenge the nation's leaders once more in the final hours – declaring that the vilification he endured has spurred him to become a full-time public advocate for the poor and the voiceless. And he has revealed that the question that up-ended the campaign on its first full day was almost never asked.
In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Storrar, 46, said the eight weeks since his Q&A appearance had been traumatic and forced him from his Geelong home and into seclusion. But on election eve, he wanted to end that isolation and let Australians know that his original act of notoriety – the simple act of asking a politician a question – was his right as a citizen.
Duncan Storrar: "Somebody like me has a right to speak." Photo: Justin McManus
[ i read this over the weekend and jumped at the Linda Tirado link ]
"I'm getting there, I'm doing better. I don't think I'll ever recover from it, but I am doing better," he said of his baptism by fire in the public arena, which included both the uplifting – Australians donated more than $60,000 to a crowdfunding account set up by two Q&A viewers – and the humiliating, when News Corp papers ran a series of stories detailing past criminal convictions.
"Somebody like me has a right to speak," Mr Storrar said.
"It doesn't matter what my past is, I'm a member of the Australian community and I have a right to ask my politicians a question … by attacking me the way the media attacked me, what it was saying was that the common man can't ask a question and he certainly can't ask a question that punches a big hole in their political argument."
He had not gone to Q&A that night to make campaign trouble; when he applied for a spot in the audience at a Melbourne broadcast of the show the campaign had not started. And the question that sparked the uproar – perhaps the most notorious inquiry of the 2016 campaign – was not the question he wanted to ask.
He had been on the Q&A audience mailing list for some time and had submitted possible questions. That night he had hoped to ask about compensation for victims as a result of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, at which he has been a witness. But because the show was all about the budget, producers asked him to use his proposed question on that issue. And so that's what he did, on Monday May 9, the day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the election.
Sitting alone in the audience – "I love Q&A but I couldn't get anyone to come with me" – Mr Storrar addressed panellist and federal minister Kelly O'Dwyer: "I've got a disability and a low education, that means I've spent my whole life working for minimum wage. You're gonna lift the tax-free threshold for rich people. If you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life. That means that I get to say to my little girls, 'Daddy's not broke this weekend. We can go to the pictures'. Rich people don't even notice their tax-free threshold lift. Why don't I get it? Why do they get it?"
In the ensuing debate, Ms O'Dwyer was mocked for mostly avoiding the question while also raising what became one of the most potent images of the campaign: the $6000 toaster, an appliance she said the government's tax write-off scheme had allowed a cafe in her electorate to purchase. Mr Storrar also faced an aggressive response from panellist Innes Willox, CEO of the Australian Industry Group.
"I couldn't believe what they were saying," Mr Storrar says.
He describes having an anxiety attack as the TV confrontation unfolded. His apparent poise was anything but. "I was shutting down. That's me saying, 'I don't want to talk any more'. I was blacking out."
Of Ms O'Dwyer – in a battle to hold her blue ribbon seat of Higgins today – he said: "I just think she's from a different planet." But he is also critical of the Labor Party. "Something went wrong between Gough Whitlam and now." The only political party to offer him private and public support was the Australian Progressives.
In the days that followed, Mr Storrar became a national lightning rod. By the end of that week, his old criminal record was published by the Herald Sun, which called him a "thug" and a "villain". By then, the attention had taken a severe toll, worsening his crippling anxiety. Earlier this year, he had also been diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder linked to sexual abuse he suffered as a ward of the state.
After Q&A, "I didn't go outside. I'm still scared to go outside."
He retreated to the country property of a friend – "I chopped a year's worth a firewood. Chopping wood can be very therapeutic." Post-Q&A, he had been contacted by an American author and poverty campaigner, Linda Tirado, who was visiting Australia and who had faced her own collision of public humiliation and acclaim after a blog post on life for the poor went viral in 2013. Watching the public uproar over Mr Storrar, Tirado says, she realised he was enduring a similar life-changing challenge.
She delayed her return to the US and now they have joined forces to create the the Rise And Be Heard project – taking its inspiration from Mr Storrar's Q&A experience. It allows people to pose questions to politicians online, which the organisation then takes up the power chain for answers.
Mr Storrar says at first he did not think he would speak to a journalist ever again. But now, "I've accepted that [speaking out] is part of what I do. There's nothing you can write about me that hasn't been written. There's nothing you can do to me and that's sort of liberating."
In the eight weeks since, has he heard anything like an answer to his questions on economic injustice? "Nothing," he says, noting that June marked the 29th anniversary of Bob Hawke's failed 1987 pledge – "By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty".
"In that time we've had both Labor and Liberal governments in power and neither one has done anything to solve this problem but they have both done things to make the problem worse."
He again offered his thanks to Australians for the flood of support, which included an avalanche of movie ticket vouchers so he could take his daughters to the pictures, as he'd mentioned in his question. The crowdsourced donations of money are in a trust fund for their education.
The support suggested people "want to do something about the state of poverty in Australia and the politicians are ignoring the fact that the Australian people want to do something. It was like, this is something we could do because we don't know what to do. If you walk down Spencer Street at 7 o'clock at night it's like you can pick which person's going to die tonight from the freezing cold. I suspect that the people who [donated] … it's the drive from them that they don't know what to do about the people in Spencer Street and this thing pops up so they put money into that. We need leadership to tell the people what they can do to help."
* Questions for politicians via Mr Storrar's and Ms Tirado's new project can be lodged at riseandbeheard.com .. http://www.riseandbeheard.com/ .. or at the Facebook page @RiseandBeHeardTour.
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