The White Savior Industrial Complex By Shawn Humphry

By learning about the poverty in not only the city of Buffalo, but also the rest of the country, it inspires me to step up and be engaged in my community even more. We have learned so much about how things like the education you receive and what neighborhood you grow up in can heavily affect your future. In one of the readings from week 4, when the author is discussing poverty, he says, “What I see is the failure of society. I see a society that let that happen, that is not doing what it should. And it’s very sad” (Pilkington 25).

    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

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.

People are still living on $2 a day here in the United States. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how is it possible for people to live with this little amount of money? I know that I cannot. In $2.00 a Day, Jennifer Hernandez, a single mother with two kids, is a person who lives on $2 a day as she tries to survive and support herself and her kids in the collapsing economy. The minimum wage job for cleaning houses reinforces the cycle of poverty that Jennifer and her kids live in. This cycle of poverty reveals that there needs to be major changes to the economical infrastructure of the United States since the poor cannot get themselves out of poverty even though they actively look for work or have a job.

Poverty has many faces in different regions of the world. Poverty is not just the lack of money to buy food or cloth but it is intervened to our life’s in different ways. The video “living on One Dollar” I watched recently has made me to think about different aspects of poverty among Guatemalan people. The video show us the experiences of four students who came to live in Pena Blanca as part of the research. This video clearly explains that poverty is such a complex social issue and it is multifaceted. Living in poverty in Pena Blanca is totally different from poverty in our societies. In today’s

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America was the first book of its type that I’ve ever read, a real life analysis of what its like to “live in poverty,” working minimum wage jobs trying to make ends meet day in and day out. It was an intriguing story of how a woman with plenty went on to document how she lived without and I found that Ehrenreich’s commentary throughout the book offered a refreshing perspective to the usual conversation that surrounds poverty; she never thought that she was better or better off than those she met working low-paying jobs, and she was always conscious of how race intersected with class throughout her so-called field experiment.

Racism is still a very prominent issue in America today. Yes, it has improved from the days of slavery, and we do have a black president; but society is nowhere near equal, and that is not acceptable. White Privilege by Paula Rothenberg truly opened my eyes to the extent of the social injustice on African Americans. Just by being white, one is oppressing another race because the privilege and respect that comes with the skin color. Whether intentional or not, the racism is still there and present and that is not acceptable. Being white, I’ve never suffered from the repercussions of racism, but after reading and becoming more aware of the suffering of African American’s, it is significant to write and spread the knowledge about racism and especially implicit racism. Everyone is surrounded by racism on a daily basis, and it’s important to be aware of your actions and the effects they have on society.

“The History of White People”, is a book written by Nell Irvin Painter. My first impression was very wrong. From the title, I expected a documentary type video about white culture; honestly, I expected the video to concentrate mostly on the historical time period when slavery existed. However, the video is Nell Irvin Painter reading from the beginning, and ends of her book. Rather than the video being about a certain historical time period, it is a literal adaptation of the title. The book is about how the “white race” came about; it discusses how certain ethnicities, and races came to be considered white, or Caucasian. I believe the book probably contains a lot more history, however she skipped over most of that and touched on the main points.

There is an extricable relationship between race, capitalism, and property and how it perpetuates the notion of whiteness through the exploitation of “others”. Property is a relationship of a person and an object; slaves were considered as objects. Race is constructed from white workers’ ideology of whiteness and labor wage. Racism has been long constructed through the production of race and its relations to property, and we can see it through the notion of capitalism and the idea of whiteness.

Bennett, Jacob. "White Privilege: A History of the Concept." (n.d.): n. pag. 11 Apr. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

Racism is dislike a person, or it is a fast judgment for the way that person 's looks, and without known anything about the person, indeed, the main reason behind racism is the lack of education. Racism is a true problem, existed hundred years ago in America, in fact, Americans showed hatred against other people especially immigrants. Some citizens of the United States of America believe the racism’s issue is resolved and it is over, also they think we all live in an equal rights era, while others believe the opposite, they believe the racism is still exists but in different forms and ways. In the book “The Heart of Whiteness”, published in 2005, by Robert Jensen, who was raised in a privileged community, he expressed himself as a white person, and the feeling of living in white supremacy. In all honesty, Jensen’s book is the most honest book I had ever read, it brought up the race problem genuinely, and the difference in treatment between the white people and the African-American people, also Jensen included some of his personal stories and experience. In the book “ The Heart of Whiteness”, Jensen aimed at white people, also he cited many points on how it is like to live in white supremacy, and the feeling of mixed emotions about the past, then what is the action white people should make. Me personally thinks the main three points that i experienced with my white friends are: White privilege. Second point is the guilt feeling towards the racism, and finally, the feeling of

We all heard countless solutions on how to solve world poverty. In Peter Singer’s article “Rich and Poor”, he discusses how he thinks this problem can be fixed. Singer claims that we all have a responsibility to support people who are in extreme need and are suffering from absolute poverty. Singer believes that poverty could be fixed if people give up their luxuries and give the money that they spent on unnecessary things to those who are destitute. In Singer 's mind, we all have a duty to give until we are no longer able to, or until the problem with the world poverty will be solved. Singer feels that it is necessary for people who are more wealthy to help those who are less fortunate by donating money right away to organizations that help fight poverty. In his opinion, by not helping those in need we are negatively responsible for their suffering and thus failing to live a moral life.

Within “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” Peter Singer delves into the topic of famine; specifically, the moral obligations individuals in affluent countries have to those who are suffering. In his example, Singer focuses on the population of East Bengal, and their struggle with famine and extreme poverty. Singer proposes that with enough aid from both individuals and various governments extreme poverty can be eradicated. Therefore, the question he presents is why poor people are dying while affluent people are spending excess money on luxuries? Singer argues that affluent people, living in affluent countries, are not helping developing countries by failing to give enough to alleviate extreme poverty.

What is the value of two dollars? To some, this ‘small’ amount of money doesn’t cross their mind as their bank accounts are much larger. On the contrary, “over six percent of the US population, including 7.1 million children,” (Brookings source 1) rely on this amount of money each day to provide food, water, shelter, medicine, education, and more for themselves and often times, their loved ones. Citizens in the United States under these conditions have been described as living in ‘absolute poverty’. Statistics from Urban Institute show that “12 percent of African Americans” are included in this underprivileged group. Moreover, individuals originating from these living situations that have been “arrested, convicted, and imprisoned were then, as they are now, males under the age of 25 from families in which the parents had little education and low incomes and held inferior jobs or no jobs at all, (National Council of welfare). This relates to James Baldwin’s “A Letter to my Nephew” when James writes to his 15-year-old nephew explaining that “this innocent country set [him] down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that [he] should perish.” (Baldwin something). Living in the slums of Harlem, the family was uneducated, lived on low wages to the point of living in absolute poverty and lastly, was born and raised under conditions involving crime and poverty rates nationally ranked one of the highest in America. Thus showing that daily income may play a role in the

The following report is a reaction and reflection in response to a personal five-day poverty simulation and the close reading of Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski.