One reason I love reading the Gazette is that its news and opinion pages often tell deep stories, even if they don’t always connect the dots.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian’s July 15 column on the abolition of poverty [“‘Poverty abolitionist focuses the conversation’”], and the Gazette’s front-page coverage (“Your utopia doesn’t include Black people” July 1) on the lack of racial diversity in the Valley, and its skin-deep sense of belonging, are large dots that seem, finally, to connect to this reality: The affluence of the Happy Valley exists because of the Tofu Wall.

That tofu is milky white and squishy only makes the symbolism even more real and pertinent. Because Ayvakian clearly shows how our Tofu Wall, all such Tofu Walls, have a hardened, cold steel core.

Because the opposite of poverty is not affluence, it is justice!

Hence, all poverty exists as the result of centuries of the deliberately and inherently unfair and unequal division of society’s goods and services. It is not something that can be alleviated by allowing “aid to poor … and working families” as the good reverend suggested. A rigged game cannot and will not ever allow itself to be righted.

In fact, we see it is hard for a good progressive to even move beyond the notion of “aid” to the low income or struggling. But if the opposite of poverty is justice, then all notions of “aid” are wrinkly, fig-leaved camouflage at best. If someone is wrongly imprisoned you do not send them a fruit basket. You free them from that prison.

Northampton’s perennial debate over “What should be done” with the city’s homeless sparring for change, and generally violating the tranquil vibe of downtown, is proof positive of the hardening of hearts that inevitably happens when you are crouched behind a wall.

“We’ve built a nice community here!” is the common lament. “There are already laws on the books” for dealing with the homeless.

And yet this very perennial debate strips Northampton and the Happy Valley of any pretense at progressivism. The exclusionary nature of affluent progressivism means you get droves of liberals who truly believe they do not have to see, let alone put up with, the messy, dirty, loud, and occasionally dangerous aspects of life in America today. Why? Because they believe they can afford not to — have somehow paid not to.

Which truly means the Valley’s empathy for the truly disadvantaged stops at Pulaski Park. It is a NIMBYism with a stone-cold heart but a mind always ready to help others, so long as it does not cost them even a little discomfort.

Who but the most privileged and affluent could parade their liberal consciences with signs, badges and pins while turning away the little bit of misery they must endure because they are affluent and simply don’t want to? This is the creed of most liberal towns in America.

Indeed, the book Ayvakian reviewed in her column, “Poverty, By America,” itself makes this clear: “The United States, the richest country on Earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why?” One of its answers is: the entrenched advantages of affluent (white) homeowners.

And the scale of poverty is much bigger than America can even allow. No matter the official cutoff, a family of four living on $50,000 a year is a “lived low-income” experience — that is almost one-third of all households. One-third. So, the truth of the matter is, the opposite of poverty is justice. Only those truly dedicated to our inherently unfair society will seek to alleviate or aid those trapped in that injustice. The painful truth is that we cannot do anything about poverty, real poverty, without the affluent losing some of their affluence.

And this is precisely when and where all politics gets dumped for home prices.

The mayor of Minneapolis just before George Floyd was killed wrote an op-ed in The New York Times noting that while mayor, she has tried to reduce poverty and homelessness, but at every single turn it was affluent white liberal who blocked any attempt at real “aid” to the poor if it meant any hit on their home prices.

Again, she was blocked at every turn by good white affluent liberals. And she said they were savage about it. Until liberals and affluent progressives are willing to see their own home prices wobble and their neighborhoods become more mixed use, Tofu Walls will abound. But this essential political issue is lost forever in the potpourri of other causes which are so very pressing, and yet always somehow not quite in our backyard.

Look at the issue of reparations today. Amherst, Leverett and Northampton have taken up the question of paying reparations to the descendants of slaves.

This will take a lot of energy, debate and time. But a far more radical and urgent idea would be to take on the corporate interests that have turned student housing — once a reliable form of cheap rent — into profit-making ventures. Even trailer parks have been bought up by speculators. Trailer parks!

Little is as important, as urgent as housing. Unless, of course, you already own. But it is a subtle political battle to take up — it does not seem as urgent as racism or reparations, certainly not as sexy, nor cred building. But little would alter our affluent enclave, change things, like a radical approach to housing.

Yet that ultimately would mean perhaps a larger presence of homeless people, it might even mean turning Pulaski Park into a dedicated space offering help for homelessness, addiction, metal health help, etc. right there in the middle of town! Wouldn’t that be something to take pride in?

But that means the affluent will have to surrender some of what they most find precious: the desire to not see every day the faces of poverty, the struggling, the confused, the ill and the unlucky sitting right next to them. That great unwashed mass the Statue of Liberty tells us we must welcome to our shores.

And the Valley wants to, just not north of the Tofu Wall.

Joe Gannon, teacher and novelist, lives in Easthampton. He can be contacted at opinion@gazettenet.com.

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