Not all the terms that include the word phobia are phobic disorders; some are prejudices and excessive rejection towards something or, more frequently, towards someone. This is the case of Aporophobia or fear of the poor, an increasingly frequent social problem that happens not only by ignoring the most disadvantaged people, but also by despising them. A type of phobia that completely nullifies empathy. We tell you everything about Aporophobia in ours.
What is Aporophobia?
Aporophobia is the fear of the poor and the destitute. But be careful because it is not a phobia as such, but a deep rejection. It is an attitude, a discriminatory attitude; neither more nor less, which only perpetuates social inequalities and keeps people with fewer resources in a situation of social exclusion.
The phenomenon of Aporophobia is still curious because we are all moved when we see malnourished children in distant countries on television. And yet we look the other way when they are around. Because they are here, on the subway, sleeping at the cashier, outside the supermarket, sitting on any street in our city reminding us that life takes too many turns to be able to digest them all.
That homeless person we don’t even look at when we enter the supermarket stirs something inside of us, something that is. Because deep down we know that not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow we are the ones who can take his place. Can you lose everything in life? It is possible, and they are the proof, a proof that makes us uncomfortable and that we reject.
Causes of Aporophobia
From this fear of losing everything, from this uncomfortable truth that we do not want to consider, Aporophobia or fear of the poor is born. But there are more, such as social stereotypes, that are more current than we think. A kind of moral superiority prevents us from developing empathy for those people who have nothing.
There is no shortage of those people who, due to their ideology, think that if they have reached that extreme of poverty or have already been born in that situation, it is due to a kind of divine justice? They will have done something, or there will be some reason for them to be in poverty. And we keep looking the other way in case bad luck sees us pass near her and wants to come with us.
Aporophobia is also related to xenophobia. Not all the poor who populate the streets and shelters are foreigners, but many of them are. And we already know that xenophobia is not a rejection of the foreigner, but of the poor foreigner.
Consequences of Aporophobia
This rejection of the poor has consequences that affect those poor people, us and us as a society. Aporophobia makes us a dehumanized society, at best charitable but ineffective when it comes to helping to solve a problem, that of poverty, which should really affect us all.
Special mention should be made of the cases of violence towards the homeless produced by this Aporophobia in its most dangerous degree, which leads us to ask ourselves what kind of person is capable of adding more suffering to the people who already live installed in it. With violence or ignorance, just by looking the other way, our human quality drops points to hell.
Logically, the worst part of the consequences of Aporophobia is borne by the protagonists, the poor people, who find it impossible to get out of that situation. Who are grateful for each act of charity, but expect one more step of generosity they can get out of poverty by themselves.