Oppression From The Rich Towards The Poor: Video Analysis

The hostility and anger harbored against the poor reflects the anger and fear the economically well off people hold against the poorer section of the society to such an extent that it becomes a matter of race and

Last class we watched an informative documentary named “People like Us, Social Class in America”. America is known to be a country defined by class. Throughout the movie it showed different opinions on what class was based on by different people and the answers varied from looks, house size, career choice, race, manners, upbringing, and education. As we move through life, most times we remove ourselves from different people not in our class to then live amongst those who share similar backgrounds and who we are most comfortable with. As stated, “if there is class, there is an inequality one cannot explain and it perpetuates itself”. Revealing class can expose hope, fears, prejudice and a myriad of different emotions that we may not all be comfortable speaking about. I feel as if part two and part three were most applicable to myself because they are something that I have experienced both directly and indirectly.

In the video Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream I noticed a bias toward the economically poor families. This video shows one of the poorest place in New York City. It is located in South Bronx on Park Avenue. The video shows that people who were born into the poor families get the short end of the stick. It states in the video that some individuals work very hard to progress out of being in their low income situations. But the wealthy Americans show prejudice against the poor Americans. The wealthy make laws and policies that are set up by the lobbyist to make it very hard for the poor to get out of poverty. Policies are no longer benefiting poor people like they once did in the past. The greed of the wealthy makes the poor angry. Training and education classes are being slashed to help with tax cuts for the Americans who are already wealthy. The fear is if the poor will continue being able to survive in the world today. Because the wealthy is cutting a lot a government assistant programs

The social problem shown in the video Separate and Unequal is poverty and racism. This video focuses specifically on Jackson, Mississippi. This video takes a look at Lanier High School and some of the student’s experiences and difficulties in this school due to poverty in this town. Jackson Mississippi is 70% black and Lanier High School is 100% black students. Everything started to go downhill for this community after integration occurred. Black students left their school and went to a more diverse school. But no one chose to come to Lanier High School or Jackson due to how run down the community and school was. Therefore the community only suffered. Manuel is a student at Lanier High School. He does not have a father figure and his mother is not in good condition due to her stroke, so he has to take care of her. He struggles in school with his grades and authority from the teachers. He plays on the basketball team but always fights with his coach because he is not used to male authority. He is kicked off of the team and ends up failing tenth grade. He then roams the streets with his buddies and his mom is very worried he’ll end up in jail or even worse, death. He is a prime example of how poverty in his family and community affect him directly. Alicia is a teen mom at Lanier High School. She is raising her baby with the help of her mother because the father is in jail. She struggles in school due to providing for her baby and ends up dropping out. She continues to try to

In the video We Can’t Afford Poverty with Charlie Demers, Charlie explains what is poverty and how we can vanquish poverty from Canada. The main points he explains is how poverty is like yoga pants, poverty in Canada, and how we can fix poverty in Canada. First Charlie starts off by explaining how a local business owner built his own mansion with his money he made selling yoga pants. People were complaining that from some angles the yoga pants were see through. Charlie explains how these yoga pants were the same as Canada’s economy.

Gentrification is the term that explains the process of renovating and improving homes, or a district to conform to middle-class preferences. As viewed in the documentary Class Divide, a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York called West Chelsea has already undergone a major shift in their community. The addition of schools such as The Avenues, and tourist attractions like the High Line has generated a new identity for the community. Children who are born in poverty in the United States have a harder time getting out of poverty than those children who come from other developed countries. This is due to various institutions such as The Avenues that have created a gap between social classes, making it harder for the lower class to achieve success. Throughout the documentary, the storyline constantly shifts to represent two different point of views: the upper class and the lower class. Within these different points of views, the central themes become evident: income inequality, opposing views of privileged and underprivileged students, and the gentrification of a community.

The existence of classes between people is lamentable, but it does exist, and it sews discord between them. Perhaps the

People are keenly aware of their class status, perhaps not in terms of the specific categories but they instinctively know that in relationship to others whether they are a part of the upper, middle or lower classes

Social class can be thought of as a very important indicator of who a person is.

The video about class vs race YouTube video reminded me of on the past readings: There is no hierarchy of discrimination. I found similarity in both because in the video, Dr. Dyson talked about how poor and middle class Americans are working against their shared interest with people of color because they listen to the lies that the wealthy propagate to protect their wealth. It relates in the sense that many forms of oppression are intertwined, and solving one could leading to solving multiple

This paper discusses the ideas presented by Richard Wilkinson, in the video How economic inequality harms societies (2011). Three compelling concepts arise from the video which are that there was no longer a correlation between gross national income and health and social problems; it is also possible to attain greater equality as evidenced by what some countries are doing to reduce the income gap; and inequalities vary based on their health impact across the social gradient but nonetheless is present from top to bottom. In order to tackle the health problems and improve the health of individuals within societies, social justice actions geared at the inequalities seen in the healthcare system and other institutions are crucial. This paper also

“Conflictive type individual act as if they support class equity; however, they are classist with subtle issues that are not apparent at face value” (Jun, 2010, p. 313). I think my privilege in SES impacted my view of class equity. I believe if someone works hard in their career resulting in their SES being upper class, they deserve to be in that position. They should not be obligated to share the wealth if they worked hard for their income. At the same time, racism and sexism does not allow an equal playing field due to microinequities. Because I am oppressed in my gender and ethnicity, I have awareness of oppression and privilege in

I am stating the Five Faces of Oppression based on my understand after reading Shaw & Lee. The first face is Exploitation. Exploitation is, “A process that transfer the results of labor of one social group to benefit another.” (Shaw&Lee, p.53.) An example of exploitation is sweat shops. Children in many parts of the world are making clothing items such as Nike for pennies a day. While these children are underpaid people who aren’t sweat shop workers’ pay multiple dollars for the items made. Marginalization is the next face, Margination is described as, “The expulsion of an entire group from useful participation in social life.” (Shaw&Lee, p.53.) A group that fits this category are the homeless. Homeless people were unable to pay their bills therefore, they’re without a home. Powerlessness comes next and is described as, “lack of respectability.” (Shaw&Lee, p.53.) An example of this would be minority groups. In the media you see many videos of white people disrespecting minorities for being “different.” Cultural Imperialism is the fourth face. Cultural Imperialism is, “Recognizing the dominant group experience and culture as the norm.” (Shaw&Lee, p.53.) An example of this is white culture in America. In America it’s the norm for mothers to be stay at home moms while the husband is the sole bread winner for the family. The last face of oppression is violence. Violence is described as, “Members of a subordinate group who live with the threat of violence.” (Shaw&Lee, p.53.) Transgender individuals live with a lot of fear and violence. Many people don’t understand or support the trans community and tend to thing in order to solve the “problem” they must hurt and kill trans individuals. Iris Young said described the acts as “Using people’s labors to produce profit while not compensating them fairly.”

Human beings tend to see the group that they associate with in a more favourable light than the groups that they do not associate with. This is known as “in-group favouritism” (Turner and Tajfel, 1986) One explanation as to why this is done is that we boost our self esteem by viewing the group we belong to in a more favourable light than the group with which we have no affiliation. This seems quite logical in that we feel a sense of pride when our group seems somewhat better or superior to other groups.

The video is briefly, but explained the details of social inequality depend on the social classes of our society; upper class, middle class, and the lower (working) class and how it is that the resources in a society are unevenly distributed. It is explaining how each classes are treated in education and healthcare. One of them are the wealth distribution in the United States; the fact that Top 20% of US are taking control of 72% of the world