Onions Have Layers

The Onion is an illegitimate news source known for its satirical commentary on everything from elections to popular culture. In an article featuring references to food stamps, the Onion captures the judgmental position many hold towards those who need to use food stamps. The article, titled "Woman A Leading Authority In What Shouldn't Be In Poor People's Shopping Carts," illustrates the dramatic class divisions present in today's society.

The parody features Carol Gaither having said every classist comment in the book, several of which appear in a single paragraph:

"Sources said that Gaither, in addition to being a noted scholar of how the indigent squander her tax dollars at the supermarket, is able to detect with astonishing frequency instances in which poor people claim they are unable to pay their own grocery bills yet, seconds later, pull out a brand new cell phone that's far nicer than the one Gaither herself owns. Moreover, as one of the most respected voices concerning the poor's flawed eating habits, Gaither reportedly possesses the ability to instantly assess when people on public assistance keep coming back to the same fatty foods that pretty much explain how they came to look like that in the first place."

These assumptions prove that the fictional woman, like her very real peers, are willfully ignorant when it comes to the struggles of those in poverty. It does not occur to Gaither that the poor can own 'luxury' items because they may not always have been in poverty, and that in places where there are many below the poverty line are often located in 'food deserts', unable to access much food with any nutritional value. Her later comment generalizing that all poor people have too many children to feed ignores the fact that too many women in poverty have little to no access to birth control, much less abortions. The use of irony in the final sentence where an acquaintance of Gaither's says, "If only these people could be as perspective as [Gaither] is." This presence of irony effectively calls out those who think they know everything about navigating daily life in poverty, despite the fact that they have never been in poverty. In taking a cynical view of these actions, the Onion effectively discourages its readers to act in this way.