How many of you believe or have heard “The poor just need to work hard and they won’t be poor”? I completely disagree and see that as a superiority complex. The poor people I’ve met are some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet. My mom has been working two or three jobs my whole life, the only time i can think of that’s different is when she was on workman’s comp and even then she illegally still worked and they took what she earned off our rent rather than giving her a paycheck.
I see moms in poverty as some of the most hard working people you will ever meet although sometimes you’ll have a guy who does, but I see more mom’s without baby daddys’. I believe the truth to getting out of poverty is either luck or connections sometimes you get both. I know people who have gone from broke to bathing in money in a few years due to MMA, Cheer Coaching,
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Even me and my mom; we’ve had help from 7 families off the top of my head. From giving us a place to stay when he were legally homeless to saving my life. All this has made me realize there is so much working against poor people, including themselves. Sometimes people don’t have the energy or time to take the opportunity to succeed. But it means they are stuck in the loop of the ghetto; even Tupac has realized his luck and the loop of poverty within his song “Brenda's got a Baby”, He brings up how she can’t read above a fourth grade level it’s sad to think there are people in today’s world who still are born and never will be able to read just because their parents don’t have the ability to let it happen. Walmart, a place some of you know as trashy, horrible, and cheap, my grandmother has worked there and she worked with a girl who didn’t pass 3rd grade, where i grew up i can remember a solid amount of people who failed 3rd or 4th
In “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person” by Gina Crosley-Corcoran. We learn about the authors struggle growing up poor. Crosley says that she was so poor growing up, it’s “the type of poor that people don’t want to believe still exists in the country.” Crosley grew up in northern-Illinois and she was truly impoverished growing up. At 12, Crosley was making cup noodles in a coffee maker with water she fetched from public bathrooms. She lived in a camper that had no running water or heat.
In the video, Homeless: The Motel Kids in Orange County, I was shocked by the fact that many unfortunate families came from the richest counties. Initially, I assumed that poor families came from places where the county was in bad shape. Also, I was in awe with the reason why one family remained in Orange County and how the families lived every day. Personally, I liked the mother’s response when she was asked if the living environment was damaging for Rudee and the mother said it doesn’t matter where you live, if you live in the ghetto, you don’t have to act like it. Rudee’s mother believes they’ll make it because they’re survivors. I admire the mother’s mentality because it reminded me of my father’s upbringing with no electricity and how
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.
To some, being poor is embarrassing and shameful, but to a select group of people; being poor is something they’re grateful to be. They embrace it and use it to their advantage to achieve better lives
Linda Tirado, author of Hand to Mouth Living in Bootstrap America, tells her story of what it’s like to be working poor in America, as well as what poverty is truly like on many levels. With a thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses her journey from lower class, to sometimes middle class, to poor, and everything in between. Throughout the read, Tirado goes on to reveal why poor people make the decisions they do in a very powerful way.
So many people in the American society live paycheck to paycheck and are one financial catastrophe away from financial ruin. In my own experience, after my husband’s employer continually embezzled from employees and clients, we found ourselves in a terrifying position. Jobless, penniless, and entrenched in mountains of subsequent debt, we were acquainted with the terror many American’s face while struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over our family. Just as the chapter 9 in our textbook describes, Aaron and his wife quickly realized that their income was “no longer sufficient to meet their needs,” (Openstax Intro to Sociology, 2015), we found ourselves in the same position. During my husband’s search for a new job, he began doing all he could to keep food on the table. He participated in tree removal, a laughable wage for hard physical labor. In desperation, I took a full time babysitting job looking after two very difficult little girls for a measly $250 a week. Looking back, although the situation was terrible and trying, we cannot wish it away. The situation taught us what mattered. There were so many things my family took for granted. The situation opened our eyes to the trials and suffering of many people in our society and allowed us to develop compassion, love, and understanding. Now, as we think back to our own struggles, it is much easier to reach out
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.
All over the world many have gone through or are still going through the struggle of being in poverty. You don’t have to be homeless to be struggling, it could be just not have lights on in your home, past due rent, or maybe not having enough or anything at all to eat. Many have felt like just because they go through this that they will never be anything because they don’t have the resources to accomplish anything in life, and other people around you who doubt you can make you believe even more that you will never amount to anything in life. Christopher Wallace aka The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie small’s song “Juicy”, released in 1994 from his Ready to Die album, selling over 607,000 copies is a great example of all of this. He tells this exact story through his song about how people used to doubt him and even goes on to tell about his life in the struggle and coming up from it.
With all of the media 's hatred of poor people, it must affect their self-confidence and how they view the American Dream. Through her experience, Jennifer Mayer has noticed that very problem. While working in the soup kitchen, she noticed that most of the people who came in lived in "survival mode" and only lived "day-to-day" with no real goals. They had no dreams of success because they believed it to be impossible (Mayer). One reason for this self-esteem issue is their lack of education. Since poor people rarely have a college education, they feel like they have no future. This can often cause them to give up on their dreams and resort to crime (Reef 225-226). Also, because poor people are below America 's social and economic system, they will often give up on their dreams.
The classic saying, “There’s always someone who has it worse than you” (Shaggy- Keepin’ it Real), didn’t come true to me until I had first-hand experience. As a child, I grew up in the lower middle class. So I wasn’t rich nor super poor. My mother came to the United States from El Salvador in the 1980’s. She has never taken my brother and me to her home country.
This is considered unworthy poor in modern times. The general public is influenced against the poor and says they are poor because they are lazy or helpless (Martin, 2014, p.35). It seems like view on this matter haven’t changed in the last 100 years (Martin, 2014, p. 36). The Christian Right and The Tea Party movement did impact views of the development of the welfare reform because they added punishing measures that are made for guiding the actions of someone receiving benefits. The worthy poor are still considered disabled or older people Martin, 2014 p.
The structural-functionalist perspective states that “poverty results from institutional breakdown” (Mooney et al. 176). People in today’s society do not have the skills or education needed for employment. The majority of those living in poverty are people who are willing to do the “dirty work” than those not living in poverty. It can be assumed that those living in low income homes are the one who are going to do the hard labor such as being a maid, gardener, janitor, etc., when it comes to being in the workforce. They are the people that are willing to do these jobs just to make ends meet. Many living in poverty are also single parents. “A third of all families headed by a single woman were in poverty last year” (Gongloff). Another issue is the unequal pay in the workplace today. There are many factors that come in to
In the article “The Myth of the Culture of Poverty,” by Paul Gorski he explains and challenges all the myths surrounding poverty and the mentality of the poor. Gorski argues that “poor people do not have weaker work ethics or lower levels of motivation than wealthier people” (33). This way of thinking is called the culture of classism. A culture that leads us to have low expectations from people who have low-income or come from low-income families. Classism are what people who are financial stable use to define poor people and their characteristics. I choose this article because Gorski provides sufficient evidence on why we should not fall victim to myths that people use to depict poor people and their
I did not realize until about the 5th grade, what being poor was all about. From kindergarten until then, kids didn’t really pay attention to what you wore to school, what type of home you lived in, or what your parents did for a living. What mattered was how nice you were, that you shared your toys, and took turns on the playground.
Nevertheless, the poor most often remain poor. This creates a jaded population of impoverished citizens. This is not to say that people are happy being poor, but that when one is taught by popular culture that they deserve better they become a victim. Someone or something has caused them to be poor; therefore, it is ultimately not their fault. One effect of this victimization is that it can breed complacency. Through whatever means, some reason, I will get what's coming to me. I am owed. Instead of using what meager opportunities are out there some will simply wait for their piece of the pie. Another effect of this idea of being a victim is the homeless are different than the mere poor because they must have done it to themselves. As they are owed just as much as everyone else, they must have done something to cause them to be homeless. This helps to calm the fear that perhaps being in America does not guarantee success or even a decent shot at it.