Poverty and Inequality Essay

Social Inequality is often the response to discussions when one considers the effects of racism. Its destructive nature has since plagued minority groups and coerced them into lifestyles that only perpetuate cycles of poverty, failure and hopelessness. Specifically in black communities, racism has had the ability to transform and assimilate a plethora of cultures. While some may believe that the historical occurrences of the atlantic slave trade and colonization of African countries happened long ago, the impact of these events have negative implications that still linger today. Racism is systemic despite the common belief of being an interpersonal practice. It promotes social stratification by systematically disenfranchising a group of people thus creating a superiority complex.

In Thomas Shapiro’s “The Hidden Cost of Being African American”, Shapiro goes in depth on how wealth in America is disproportionately dispersed between different nationalities. Mainly between Caucasians and African Americans. Shapiro has helped paint the image of wealth inequality and has shown how this is even more staggering than the wage gap between African Americans and Caucasians. Some of the theories he indirectly uses in his book and that I will be exemplifying are generational wealth and support systems, education, and the idea of how poverty only begets more poverty.

Although, this theory began as a part of law sciences, nowadays, there is a great interest of CRT in the field of education, helping people to understand some forms of discrimination which face the non-white people in education (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). Moreover, embraces a lot of academic fields such as history, political science, anthropology etc (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001). CRT main purpose is not only to understand the social structures that promote inequalities but to eliminate them, it is clear that CRT targets on

Bonilla-Silva states, “individuals are not the ones who create larger systems such as ‘capitalism,’ ‘patriarchy,’ or ‘racialized social systems,’ but they are the ‘cogs’ that allow these systems to run” (p. 221). The main purpose of this book is not to portray whites as evil beings in the U.S. or demonize dominant groups in other societies but to point out that invisible privilege is in need of acknowledgment from the dominant group. Meaning, if you have a voice to stand up for the injustice, use

The authors provide considerations for training and education by allowing us to see where these issues intersect with racism. The intersections with class and race tend to fall where white people, specifically white men are have accumulated more wealth than the people of color because historically America was built at the expense of people of color for the benefit of white men. The authors state that, “Whiteness itself is an artifact of sociocultural dominance production (Frankenburg, 1993); that is, it exists as a

Introduction: I have learned a multitude of concepts during this quarter that will linger with me for years to come, the two that resonate the most, for me, are classism and racism. Classism and Racism are the two most prominent “ISM’S” due to their relationship and how they intermingle disparities and biases of being poor and a minority. Although I knew of the issues taking place in my own community, I would not allow myself to absorb the magnitude of this travesty. After watching the American winter, the disparities became clearer than I had dreamt.

For racial inequality at the personal level, I chose to look at the perception of racial inequalities through the eyes of white America. First I wanted to address the idea of color blind racism. Bonilla-Silva explains how white America believes that “the nation is beyond race….and believes they have nothing to do minorities issues with racial inequality.” When whites are asked about racial inequality toward blacks they use the “it wasn’t me” stance to deny any responsibility. By doing this they are suggesting that there are alternative perspectives or reasons for minorities standing in society but not racism. There is the sense that white America uses this stance to indirectly “blame the victim”. For example, rather than credit the racial inequalities that blacks faced for many years, white America will cite personal responsibility over racial discrimination as to why blacks can’t get ahead. White America is not used to experiencing racial inequalities, and are able to ignore racism

The political and economic consequences of racial discrimination have most certainly had an imbalanced benefit for white communities. However, these benefits are accepted as the standard for which these communities should be and have been in a sense of status quo. This refusal to accept the societal discrimination had often been referred to as color-blindness. Color-blindness can be defined as the refusal to acknowledge the struggle of non-white’s by using the success of a few no-white individuals as an example of a fading social racism. A example of this which is often used, is the election of President Barack Obama (López, 2004). Through the national election of a categorized “black” president, many have felt that this is an example of a race-free society. This community who believe this are often uneducated to contemporary societal structure of our country, or have personal agenda’s in which they feel the need to mask with bold statements.

     How many times have you been on your way home, or somewhere around downtown, and at a stoplight you see someone sitting at the intersection with a cardboard sign that reads something along the lines of, “Homeless and hungry”? If you have ever been in a car that passes through a large city in the U.S., then like most others you probably have. What have these people done to be in a situation like this? What can you do to help? Are they really homeless? These are commonly asked questions, however few really take the time to find the answer. An outstanding injustice that I see prevalent in today’s society is the amount of people living in poverty in the United States.

As my United States History teacher used to say, "The rich get richer and the poor get screwed." While taking the course in high school, I did not exactly know what this meant. Now that I have more background knowledge on how class, race, and gender greatly impact an individual 's quality of life, I see that this statement holds true, unfortuntely. What my teacher meant was that those who have opportunities continue towards the path of success, and those who do not have the same priveleges are being robbed of the same opportunities. All too often, people are judged, discriminated against, and simply held back because of factors such as their race or ethincity.

Highest income capital of the world but we have poverty in and around us everyday. We have all this money but we fall short in helping others. Over the past couple weeks I have come to realize that many people look past the poverty in our very own home towns. As I look through this I realize many different things put in place to keep us safe and to better our poverty levels,sadly they honestly have done the complete opposite of that. Throughout this class we have covered many different articles that have to do with poverty the main two I want to focus on, “Big Pharma Profits From Our Heartbreak”, “ Health is a Membership” also, “The Top 10 Solutions to Cut Poverty and Grow the Middle Class.”

likely to be poor than other families. Families where the head has no more than

What is poverty? Poverty is the indicator of individual socio-economic status. Socioeconomic status measures individual income and merit within society. The topic poverty is a serious issue that should not be taken for granted. People from the vulnerable population are often forgotten about within society. As the researcher, one’s objective is to highlight the social issue poverty, demographics, and impact. As well the measurements used to calculate poverty. Why is poverty an issue of significance? Poverty impact an individual quality of life rather it is mental, physical, and emotionally. Poverty is like a big black cloud that weighs, therefore, down. There are many negative risk factors associated with poverty such as high crime rate,

Poverty is a major problem in the United States today. Social, economical, political, and cultural factors all contribute to poverty. Education and economic development are two major issues that will help prevent poverty. The United States Census Bureau defines poverty as an "economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain basic needs for food, housing, clothing, health services and education." In other words, poverty is powerlessness, a lack of representation and freedom. Poverty is an issue that the world faces everyday.

“The causes of poverty include changing trends in a country 's economy, lack of education, high divorce rate which causes feminization of poverty, having a culture of poverty, overpopulation, epidemic diseases such as AIDS and malaria, and environmental problems such as lack of rainfall”. (White, Killick & Kayizzi, 2001) Almost half of the world over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. It is said that “a country is poor because it is poor.” Low level of sparing diminishes the degree for investment; low level of investment yields low salary and subsequently the circle of poverty goes on uncertainly. There are five main causes of poverty in the world.