Introduction
The article Being Poor, Black and American: The Impact of Political, Economic, and Cultural Forces written by William Julius Wilson is about the struggles and inequalities African Americans living in poverty encounter. Wilson discussed political, economic and cultural forces that have an impact on American impoverished communities. The author suggested the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina brought the media and world attention to poverty in the United States. Prior to Katrina, the author believes Americans did not focus or sympathize with poor communities. This unsympathetic attitude stems from the belief that people are poor because they did not work hard enough, or are not doing anything to get out of that situation. After Katrina, Americans started to notice and care about the impoverished communities because the hurricane was a natural disaster and out of their control. Overall, the author explains how politics, economics and cultures forced many families into poverty, and diminishes the idea that people live in poverty because of their own shortcomings.
Political Force
The author explained how the government established policies and initiatives that created ghettos and suburbs. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is a program that helped citizens become homeowners by lending loans. However, only certain neighborhoods qualified for those loans. Research and data were used to prove that certain areas were considered a loss of investment. The
Political forces, which are controlled by the government, can majorly influence and change the way people live their life. From the Federal Housing Administration, which enabled citizens to become homeowners by underwriting mortgages, to the Interstate Highway Act, that change the route of expressways, political forces can dramatically change the way a city runs and functions. Wilson (2011) states, “In short, public housing became a federally funded institution that isolated families by race and class, resulting in high concentrations of poor black families in inner-city ghettos” (pg. 14). Wilson describes political forces as
In this article Massingale highlights the lack of concern for the marginalized in America by comparing Hurricane Katrina to a similar hurricane in Cuba where different precautions were taken and no one died. Katrina on the other hand, killed at least 1,706 people most of which were poor, black, elderly, or otherwise disadvantaged in society. Massingale explains three factors that contribute to our country’s “cultured” indifference to the poor. The first is the idea that poverty is the fault of the poor. Since America is regarded as the “land of opportunity” those who do not thrive here are viewed as careless and lazy. The second factor is the value we place on material objects—the more you have the more you are worth. The third factor is how
Understanding that the poverty of black Americans did not just stay within the home is a big step in understanding urban poverty. Urban poverty reached outside the home, into the parks, schools and playgrounds. With poverties reach being that extensive, there was something other than adversity causing this. Louis Gates wrote an article about this called “Black America and The Class Divide.” (Jr.)
Poverty is not just about income, but it is about the health of people, their feelings, relationships and the environment, and society (Sutherland, 2013). According to the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) (2016), the highest poverty rate is among African Americans, which make up 27.4 percent. In addition, children under the age of 18, which is about 21 percent of about 15.3 million, live in poverty. The concern related to this population is the chances of adolescent getting HIV. According to McKay, Alicea, Elwyn, McClain, Parker, Small, and Mellins (2014), 50 percent of adolescents and young adults are infected with HIV each year. In addition, due to the fact that some adolescent
At the turn of the century, public attention to the dangers and unfortunate situation of most African Americans seemed to decrease dramatically (Wilson, Being Poor, Black, And American 2011). There was little to no media attention to the problem of concentrated poverty in inner city neighborhoods, in which almost all of population falls beneath the national poverty level (Wilson, Being Poor, Black,
Many Americans believe drugs, violence and teen pregnancy are the most prevalent issues our society faces today. Yet those problems are not as fast growing as the issue on poverty. In fact, many of our social issues derive from the one object that every American worries about, that’s money. Poverty exists throughout the world, leaving billions of people faced with absolute poverty; having no access to the basic necessities for survival. It has been brought to my attention that the majority of people in America living in poverty are not the minorities but white Americans. According to the article, “White poverty exists, ignored” author Leonard Pitts Jr, states that approximately 29.8 million white Americans are living in poverty. The article
America has always been a country known for their great integrity, diversity, financial prosperity and great pop culture. It has been a place many people have flocked to from many different parts of the world in order to escape their very own poverty struck countries in their quest to build a new life in America and hopefully become financially stable. In this article written by M. Harrington he pointed out some key factors discussing how America has not really changed from over a hundred years ago. In specifics he tells how many years have gone by and still yet there is still a very large amount of a poverty class of people. Although our nation takes great pride on its classlessness there is still a one quarter
There was a person who, by mercy, brought him from his native land to America. I agree to the point that since he was saved, there is a God and a Savor. However, I do not agree with where the author said that some view African Americans with a cynical eye. “Some view our sable race with scornful eye. ‘Their color is a diabolic dye.’ “(Par. 1). I believe that the word “some” should be changed to “many” since tons of people give inequality towards the Negros. Quite sad since, in my eyes, equality is for everyone. I do agree to the part where the person said that Christians and black people are going on the angelic train which probably means that God accepts them and gives them grace and fidelity. In the second poem, the person states that he
In the United States, one is constantly hearing of the “struggle low-income communities face.” While it is often alluded to on large scale news channels, such as Fox and CNN, and is spoken of on daily talk shows, not very many people often take the time to discuss what the problem with these low income communities actually is.
According to the authors stated the African American middle class increases size, this group stays in the country. The author had interviewed other people information that the middle class as divided based on the social category and wealthy. The African American different from each other. According to the community, family income size, there is middle class and 75%. The national average college degree is 12% but the Groveland is 20% had this shown as slight differences and unclear. This neighborhood achieved and improve they are equal to most of those groups with which they will be competing with others.
The disproportionate rates of poverty among African americans has continued to be a persistent social problem that the United States faces. “The purpose of this article is to examine how poverty has been approached in the media, specifically on the opinion pages of American newspaper.” Poverty is often explained in three different ways. The first explanation is blaming the person for ending up in poverty. As people often associate poverty with a lack of responsibility and it has also been noted that poverty is blamed on the poor when race is involved. As the media shows the poor are frequently the minorities and the African Americans, even though most welfare recipients are white. The next explanation is the culture of poverty theory. The founder of this theory has said even
Bringing this statistics up is a good idea because what I want to show audience if I show this paper ends up somewhere else, the importance and the reality that is causing is real. There are people in the United States who are really stressing out right now because they can’t purchase items they need. Even worse putting food on the table. How can no one is doing anything to help these poor innocent people? What can we help to make a big difference? Lot of these citizens who are in poverty needs support and that the government puts in a little bit effort to help the people in need. The government don’t believe that most of the citizens actually need money, but they don’t know that. What if they actually need the money? This leads to many problems for the citizens because they will end up living in bad locations instead of good locations. Poverty is caused by many different things. The main cause of poverty in the U.S are stereotyping, separation of social activities lack of knowledge, employment skills and educations. The most known cause people spend their earnings on drugs and alcohol, which leads to poverty. How can we help? Well what I can do is create an organization, an organization to help people that are desperate for items like: Food supplies, Housings Mortgages, Money, etc.. Meaning, donating and it will benefit us that we are supporting others in need, if we can’t do that everyone everyone will fall down and there’s nothing we can do about it. In order to happen I
The socioeconomic status for those who are impoverished in the United States is inherently poor and has not seen marked improvements over the last 30 years. Rather the situation has grown increasingly dire with continued and extreme inequities. Communities within the urban setting suffer from poverty levels much greater than those in rural communities. Mona Scott (2012), explains that minority groups suffer from the effects of the inequity of poverty. African American communities experience an unemployment rate of 15 percent, whereas white communities have an unemployment rate of 10 percent (p. 177). Great strides must be taken in order to reverse the negative effects of poverty overall, and the magnified negative impact poverty has in
Redlining continued under the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loan program, whose 1939 Underwriting Manual expressed a belief that “property values would decline if a rigid black and white segregation was not maintained” (Oliver and Shapiro 18). Thus blacks at every level of income were consigned to the urban ghetto, where “homes and communities deteriorated and lost value” (18), while middle-class whites moved to the suburbs where they could accumulate personal
Throughout our course, we have looked at the lives of those economically disadvantaged in our society. We have talked about the causes and effects of poverty on individuals and communities and looked at multiple in depth sociological studies. I have come to the conclusion that sociological research is not relevant until it is grounded in rigorous analysis that takes into account the complex nature of social categories. Likewise, sociological analysis means nothing in a vacuum. Its value lies in the actions that people take because of the new information that they hold. In this essay, I will use the sociological concepts we have reviewed in class as a lens to reflect on my experience with developing my own sense and understanding of empathy in order to prove the importance and relevance of empathy in relation to the field of sociology.