【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai , 2026-01-15
Not long ago, the term “kill line” went viral. An article shared by a friend introduced me to Linda Tirado, an American woman “killed” twice—once by systemic poverty oppression, and once by physical state violence. What commands my respect is not merely her capacity for independent thought, which enabled her to write Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America from the perspective of someone who has lived at the bottom. It is also her decision, after escaping that underclass through her book and gaining a platform, to become an independent journalist and continue speaking for those at the margins. Tracing her journey from the poverty line to the front lines reveals the intellectual and practical expedition of an independent thinker.
Linda’s early life epitomised the microhistory of America’s working poor. Shifting between restaurant shifts and call centre gigs while raising two children, she endured that hopeless cycle where ‘one salary is never enough, and two jobs drain every ounce of strength.’ The turning point came on an ordinary evening in 2013. Confronted with a condescending online query—‘Why don’t poor people plan ahead?’—an angry and weary Linda tapped out a detailed response on her phone. She explained why fast food became a necessity (time being scarcer than money), why saving proved impossible (no margin for error), and why seemingly ‘irrational’ choices were, under survival pressure, the only rational ones.
This post, titled ‘Why I Make Terrible Decisions, Or, Poverty Thoughts,’ rapidly went viral. Linda, speaking from the perspective of both a lived experience and an observer of poverty, laid bare the deep-seated flaws within American society. In her book Scraping By, she meticulously deconstructed the ‘choices of the poor.’ She discerns that poverty is not personal failure. It is a trap jointly engineered by mutually reinforcing economic systems and social policies. Within this system, the scheduling demands of low-wage work, inadequate wages, and the absence of social safety nets collectively create an inescapable survival trap.
The publication of this book lifted Linda out of financial hardship and thrust her into the public eye. Fame and fortune often go hand in hand, yet she harnessed her newfound voice to keep the spotlight and her pen trained on the corners overlooked by mainstream media: how medical debt devastates families, the “time poverty” of low-wage workers, and the invisible victims of the housing crisis. Contributing to publications such as The Guardian and The Nation, she documented the unseen realities of America through her lens. In 2014, she was named among the BBC’s 100 Women.
Such a cross-class transformation carries a dangerous temptation—to join the chorus of ‘survivor narratives’ attributing one’s success to ‘working harder than others.’ Linda, however, remains acutely aware that her ‘success’ proves precisely the randomness, not the fairness, of the system—countless others work just as hard, yet only a tiny minority gain a platform like hers.
From restaurant waitress to bestselling author to independent journalist, her trajectory defied the classic ‘escaping one’s origins’ narrative. Instead, she accomplished a rare return—with sharper eyes, a steadier pen, and broader vision—to the ‘front lines’ she had never truly left. There began her protracted struggle against systemic injustice.
Her photography project further extends this ethos. Through her lens, she documents another reality beneath America’s façade of prosperity—dilapidated neighbourhoods, weary faces, forgotten corners. These images are not detached documentation but empathetic witnessing. Her social media feeds interweave professional reporting with immediate critiques of injustice.
During the 2020 pandemic outbreak, while mainstream media fixated on stock market volatility and macroeconomic policies, Linda turned her lens to the working poor forced to choose between health and livelihood, and impoverished children denied access to remote education resources, filling gaps in the dominant narrative.
Linda has redefined the role of the public intellectual. Rather than offering lofty theories, she conducts grounded systemic analysis. In debates over minimum wage legislation, she uses concrete figures to demonstrate how a few dollars’ increase in hourly pay transforms a family’s dinner quality and a child’s after-school activity choices.
She critiques mainstream narratives that attribute poverty to individual failings—such as laziness or lack of effort—pointing instead to the inherent unfairness of the rules themselves. In a race where starting lines are vastly unequal, she argues that emphasising effort alone is an arrogance of privilege. Most commendably, Linda maintains a constant self-reflection. She acknowledged the gap between her middle-class life and that of her subjects, continually adjusting her interviewing and writing style to avoid ‘condescending sympathy’ and pursue ‘side-by-side understanding’.
Linda’s work embodies authentic ‘public sociology’—not armchair theorising, but grounded documentation, witnessing, and critique. She firmly believes knowledge must culminate in action, in amplifying the voices of the silenced. In this age of selective engagement, Linda demonstrates that the unity of knowledge and action transcends philosophical abstraction, becoming a sustained practice of transforming personal experience into public conscience.
Yet frontline journalism carries ever-present peril. On 29 May 2020, while covering the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the George Floyd case in Minneapolis, Linda was tragically struck in the face by ‘non-lethal’ munitions fired by police. Despite wearing protective eyewear and carrying press credentials, her left eyeball was shattered, resulting in permanent blindness and severe brain damage.
Afterwards, Linda told a Reformer reporter she had no regrets about covering that protest on the day she lost her sight: ‘I did the right thing. Any time you as a member of the press are covering people who are hurting, it is worth it.’
Following the incident, she filed a lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis and the police department for excessive use of force. Speaking to Courthouse News, Linda stated: ‘My aim is to ensure this situation does not recur, to draw attention to how such incidents occur repeatedly across the nation – as it did in Minneapolis – and how profoundly unjust this phenomenon is.’
In her lawsuit, she stated that the purpose of the action was not merely to seek compensation, but to serve as a warning to the public and to protect press freedom. According to the complaint, at least one projectile shattered her protective goggles. Linda claimed she identified herself as media personnel and closed her eyes to avoid blood and tear gas, yet no law enforcement officer attempted to assist her. The complaint further alleges police may have deliberately targeted journalists, citing multiple reporters injured during protest coverage and a letter from police union president Kroll disparaging the press to the department.
Linda, lacking health insurance, incurred $58,000 in medical expenses from her injuries. Even so, after securing a $600,000 settlement, she donated $120,000 to local community organisations.
In subsequent years, the after-effects of her brain injury continued to worsen. In June 2024, the National Press Club issued a statement: Linda Tillard, the author and independent journalist whose book Surviving on the Margins shook American society, had entered palliative care.
Even now, her words retain their power. She attributed her resilience to her experience of poverty: ‘I think the only reason I’m dealing with this so well is I think poverty and low wage work is just as brutal and visceral as losing an eye to a police bullet. It’s just that people don’t think of it that way because it happens to more people.’ ‘I think the only reason I’m dealing with this so well is I think poverty and low wage work is just as brutal and visceral as losing an eye to a police bullet. It’s just that people don’t think of it that way because it happens to more people.’
Linda Tirado’s life journey—from a mother struggling to feed her family, to a sharp-tongued writer, to an independent reporter charging into the front lines of news—has become the longest-running report of her own existence. Its theme remains constant: how an individual’s dignity and survival are eroded and violated within a society that systematically breeds inequality and violence.
Her story began defending survival beneath the “kill line”, only for systemic violence to ultimately push her across that threshold herself… The eye that once gazed upon poverty and documented injustice was permanently extinguished, its damaged brain silencing both pen and lens. This final “execution” imbued all her writings—from ledgers calculating survival to frontline reports—with a weight validated by life itself. Through her complete unity of knowledge and action, she demonstrated the tragic limits an individual conscience can reach when confronting the systemic behemoth, becoming a profound indictment of structural violence.
JM Editor’s Note:
Regarding ‘social mobility’ and subsequent life choices, the editor cannot help but draw parallels to recent online discussions in the simplified Chinese-speaking sphere surrounding two interview programmes featuring women who achieved class ascension through marriage. One is Ms Tian, known as ‘Wang’s Woman’, who interviewed Mr Duan, a ‘wealthy idler’ with a net worth of 200 billion yuan; The other featured the lawful wife of the ‘Mingzhou Incident’ protagonist, launching her new venture ‘Little Tian Zhang’ in its inaugural appearance.
After fast-forwarding through the interviews, comment sections brimmed with critiques such as ‘out of touch,’ ‘peddling the “powerful woman” persona,’ and ‘lacking hosting skills.’ Perhaps the controversy itself was part of the strategy—or even orchestrated by promoters seeking amplified reach and traffic. In this era, ‘negative publicity is still publicity.’
Yet, as fellow women embodying narratives of ‘social mobility,’ the depth and radiance of these two figures’ lives, as conveyed by the programme, pale in comparison to the profound impact of this article’s protagonist, Linda Tirado. Why?
What truly matters is how public figures who have achieved social advancement wield their influence. Though this editor does enjoy a bit of gossip.
Linda Tiraido offers another answer.
After ascending, she did not ‘flee’ her origins. Instead, she rooted herself more firmly in the familiar lower strata, continuing to speak for the voiceless. Her personal value stems from this weighty responsibility.
She does not shy away from painful experiences but reflects on universal predicaments. This embodies the Confucian principle of ‘extending one’s own feelings to others’.
She sued over police brutality, yet understood how individuals become instrumentalised within systems (recalling those ‘temporary staff’ statements in public incidents). Her litigation sought not merely compensation, but heightened public awareness to shield media from fearing unlawful reprisals cloaked in legal provisions, preventing future tragedies. This embodies the duty of every citizen.
Her pen gave voice to the voiceless; her lens exposed injustice. When systemic violence finally struck her, she delivered the world’s most profound, final interrogation through her shattered body.
Life as testimony, death as inquiry. This is the weight of truth, a thousand pounds heavy!
References:
- https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-photojournalist-permanently-blinded-others-assaulted-during-minneapolis-protests/
- https://www.londonfreelance.org/www.londonfreelance.org/fl/2407tirado.html
- https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/journalist-linda-tirado-minneapolis-police-dying-hospice-care/
- https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/after-an-mpd-less-lethal-round-took-her-eye-in-2020-journalist-invests-part-of-her-600k-settlement-into-community/
- https://garden.org/thread/view_post/2545523/
- https://m.kuow.org/stories/a-journalist-shot-by-police-while-covering-the-2020-protests-is-dying-of-her-injuries
- https://racketmn.com/linda-tirado-journalist-who-was-half-blinded-in-minneapolis-protests-enters-hospice-care
- https://www.mintpressnews.com/linda-tirado-blinded-journalist-shot-by-police-speaks-out/268639/
Translated by DeepL
Edited by Wind
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