Analysis Of Chop Shop

The author starts by explaining a question that many people ask about the odd behaviors in poor people and their purchases. She helps to explain this by giving background information on her own family when she was growing up. An event she describes is when her neighbor was unable to obtain benefits to raise her granddaughter after a year, the authors mom dresses “expensively” or nicely to gain an upper hand when asking for their benefits. This is done to further her belief that people buy these things to belong and to gain more privilege. She ends her essay by stating a person cannot judge what a poor person does until they’ve been poor themselves.

In Bell Hooks, Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor, Hooks writes about what she considers to be hazardous in dispositions towards neediness in the United States, and in proposing arrangements. Hooks starts the essay off by saying, “Americans today rarely talk about the poor” (Bell Hooks). She explains that Americans acknowledge the existence of four groups: the poor, the working class, those who worked and have extra money, and the rich.

    In her writing, George examines how certain organizations, such as the “Habitat for Humanity” that aim to eliminate poverty may be working against themselves by the way they choose to show the problem. The visual representation that the organization gives reflect the understanding that most Americans have when it comes to what poverty really is. Showing the typical shacks, dirt, and black and white photos will alter a person’s mindset on poverty and cause them to not be able to recognize themselves in that situation. In reality, the poverty in countries like Africa are no different than the poverty we have in America. Georges writing gives examples of how Americans within our society are not motivated to help people as compared to other countries. All the sources she uses in her analysis are representing

Many movie companies and industries have made millions of dollars off of movies that portray poor people, because many individuals prefer to relive the times when they were either poor, or disliked by the society as a whole. There are many movies such as Pretty Woman which “is a perfect example of a film that made huge sums of money portraying the poor in this light” (Hooks, 486). Hooks perceives this as a very good way of making profit, but does mention that the poor should not be devalued by the society this way, and should be treated differently with respect. The way the companies portray the poor in the movies is the way the higher and middle class

In turn, George’s thesis is an interesting one because of the depth she adds to it, but that should not deter your attention from her original argument. George provides a variety of examples, but elaborates on Habitat for Humanity and their publications in particular, to show their dependence on certain stereotypes. These

George states that one of the biggest misrepresentations of Habitat for Humanity is that the organizations believes the signs of poverty are easily visible and recognized. In actuality, poverty does not always have to look like a third world country that is falling apart. Poverty has many forms and ways it can be displayed and addressed. Many people think poverty has to symbolize a broken down home, or dirty clothes. Poverty can mean you cannot

Author Bryan Stevenson (2014) writes, “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned”(p.18). According to the non-profit, Feeding America (2016), in 2015, 43.1 million, or 13.5%, of people in the United States were impoverished. Poverty is a vicious cycle, trapping people and families for generations. The inability to escape poverty is due in part to difficult class mobility in the U.S. but also because certain factors reinforce the idea and state of poverty. Bryan Stevenson’s bestseller Just Mercy, Lindsey Cook’s article “U.S. Education: Still Separate and Unequal”, Michelle Alexander’s excerpt “The Lockdown”, and Sarah Smarsh’s “Poor Teeth” all explore the idea of poverty and the systems that sustain it. While all four readings focus on poverty differently and explore it using different techniques, they all share similar big picture ideas about how poverty is fortified through systematic, societal, and psychological efforts.

In ‘Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor’ by Bell Hooks, issues involving the poor and the rich in the society are brought to light. Hooks addresses issues such as how the poor are viewed in the community, common assumptions about the poor, and how the poor are represented in the media. In her analysis, it is evident that those living in poverty are grossly misrepresented. This misrepresentation affects these people’s daily lives.

Ehrenreich also appeals to is pathos through descriptive word choices. Pathos is defined as the use of emotionally loaded language, emotional events, and figurative language in order to inflict sympathy on the reader. In this case, Ehrenreich is attempting to create sympathy for people who work minimum wage jobs by describing her own experiences in detail. For instance, when Ehrenreich is at Old Orchard Beach in Maine, she sees a street performer and decides to give him money for his beautiful playing. She says, “When the song ends, I give him a dollar, the equivalent of about ten minutes of sweat” (Ehrenreich 86). Ehrenreich wants to remind people that the money she made is a result of hard, physical labor she endured. She sweat for ten minutes to earn that dollar, and so she reminds readers that any money she has is a result of hard work she put forth. Usually people do not think of dollar amounts as time spent working, so by doing this and including the word “sweat” (which indicates tireless labor), she creates an emotional appeal towards herself and others who have minimum wage jobs. Also, Ehrenreich describes in detail the unpleasant tasks she needs to perform with her job as a maid. Obviously not every minimum wage worker is a maid, however a lot of minimum wage jobs have similar tasks like maids’. For example, Ehrenreich goes into

I am only thinking about myself and have been conditioned by society that the poor are beneath me. Just as hooks states in her book, “Society is telling them that poverty and nihilism are one and the same. If they cannot escape poverty, then they have no choice but to drown in the image of a life that is valueless” (hooks, 198), we have been taught by society to believe that poverty and nihilism are synonymous, but this is not true. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, I believe it takes a nation to resolve the issue of poverty. Our society needs to dig deep to reignite the morals that generations in the past taught us; sharing our resources, whether monetarily or charitably, through understanding, kindness and generosity to those less fortunate. We all have to be ready to share liberally and recognize the fact that there are those who struggle and deserve attention paid to their struggles. By helping others who have not, we keep our humanity intact and maintain our ability to empathize and show compassion towards others. Our culture is based on working together and helping our neighbors. We need to stop considering the poor invisible and instead take personal steps to keep our communities thriving via good will towards others, and lending a helping hand. The poor, just as our environment, are our responsibility, and the sharing of resources is crucial to bringing an individual from poverty to a more

Go to Chicago, New York, Paris or Madrid, on every street corner you see a person less advantaged, poor, and desperate. Then go in a store, see others carrying expensive bags, swiping their credit card left and right. We live in a world of extreme poverty, balance seems nonexistent. Poverty can result in broken homes and in turn, broken lives. In the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Walter Mcmillian’s adult life, Trina Garnett’s childhood and Antonio Nuñez’s domestic life show that poverty was the cause of their incarceration and determined the success of their lives.

In the article, Hooks focuses on the issue involving lower and higher class and comparing them in poverty by giving her own personal experiences to illustrate her argument. While addressing the assumptions made about the poor and the view in America culture in the U.S. usually portrays the poor in ways that radiate negative stereotypes according to Hooks. The way that the poor are being represented on television. Hooks clarifies that the misinterpretations of those in poverty can affect their daily lives. Popular culture in the U.S. usually portrays the poor in ways that radiate

I liked bell hook’s essay “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”. Bell assesses the light in which higher class people view the poor or lower class. Bell hooks, also known as Gloria Watkins grew up in a small Kentucky town where her father worked as a janitor for the local post office. As one of seven children she was taught that money and material possessions did not make her a better person but hard-work honesty and selflessness determined character. Her hard work landed her acceptance into Stanford University. Although she received various scholarships and loans, her parents worried that she would not have enough for books and supplies or emergency funds. Regardless of this, belle went on to earn a Ph.D. Her experiences and education earned her a very good reputation and even an authority writing critiques on popular culture and diversity (hooks 431-432). She uses ideas in her essay “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, that stem from her own personal experiences with poverty to add credibility to her writing, as well as examples from pop culture and mass media to demonstrate how these representations portray the lower class in ways that radiate negative stereotypes. She wrote the essay because she saw how the poor had many assumptions made about them. It wasn’t until college thought that she made that discovery. She discovered how unjustly they were represented due to the

Words provoke preconceived ideas and images in the mind, when it comes to a situation like poverty these preconceived notions can have undesirable and unintended consequences. Diana George examines the semantics and the imagery of the word poverty in her article titled “Changing the Face of Poverty; Nonprofits and the Problem of Representation. While also addressing the issue of the perception poverty and what someone in poverty truly looks like (676). Prof. George is arguing that organizations like Habitat for Humanity, which are created to help people in poverty actually perpetuate the wrong image of what someone in poverty looks like (678). Most organizations created to help those in need, especially those in the US tend to portray poverty as what is seen and thought of as living conditions in Third World countries (683). In reality, poverty is all around each and every one of us in this country on a daily basis, and people might not always recognize it for what it is (681,682). Furthermore, the majority of people living in poverty in the United States do not live like or look like someone living in a Third World country. But in reality they are still living in poverty nonetheless (682,683). Organizations that portray people living in poverty here in the US as totally devastated and completely impoverished are doing a disservice to the people they are attempting to help. Consequently, by doing this they are giving a limiting idea of what someone living in poverty

The lack of dignity that these individuals feel is a direct effect of society’s disrespect for the lower class. The stereotypes of the homeless conceived by upper social classes, cause the lower class to lose any respectable role they may have in society. A homeless man in Oberlin, Ohio says, “Many of us historically invisible people, in our quest for visibility, have chosen to take the routes of organization and alliance building. Often we tend to find that our muted voices have more resonance, bass, and credibility within these snugly, institutionally sanctioned cubby holes” (Laymon). After failing to get sufficient help through