Analysis Of Two American Families

Beginning in 1992, a man named Bill Moyers has followed the lives of two American families in the film, “Two American Families.” Produced as a documentary, the film covers an 11 year period. The two families shown in the film are the Neumann family and the Stanley family. Both families have multiple children and struggle economically. The main difference between the two is that the Stanleys are African American and the Neumans are white. This leads to the question of whether race was a cause of all their struggles. The Stanley 's struggles truly began when the value of their neighborhood began to decline. The mother of the family, Jackie Stanley, was a real estate agent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was a very successful real estate

Some people believe that poverty is beneficial. For example, Herbert J. Gans. is a big fan of poverty. In his essay, “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All,” he explains the benefits of having poor people in society. “The existence of poverty ensures that society’s “dirty work” will be done.” -Herbert J. Gans (Gans, 1971.) He believes that the poverty level needs to be relatively high to support the comfortable lives of middle and upper class people. The working poor support the other classes. However, it is very difficult for people in the lower class to make a move upwards. Generally in the “dirty jobs” pay very little and there is little to no opportunity for advancement. Often times, there is an ascribed status for those in the lower class. Since their parents were poor, they have little to no opportunities to have a life any different. It is very difficult for these individuals to attend college, due to rising tuition prices. In today’s society it is nearly impossible to attain a high paying job without a college degree. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs have been moved overseas to save money, but that means finding work in America is very difficult (Frontline Charts, 2013.) Even if they can find work, wages for such jobs have been dropping and are often not enough to support a family or even

Write Mills’ essay, “The Sociological Imagination,” he discusses poverty in a broad way. “When, in a city of 1,000,000, only one is unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the individual, his skills and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of 50,000,000 employees, 15,000,000 people are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has collapsed.” -C. Write Mills (Mills, 1959.) For the structural functionalist theory to work, a theory that views society as a very complex system in which all parts need to be functioning properly and together, this is unacceptable. Having such a big section of the population unemployed, the parts cannot function properly. Mainly because there are too many of one part and not enough of the others. Also, if the country has aid programs for unemployed and struggling people, having such a massive amount of poverty is impossible to account for. There is no way a country’s government can fully support so many of its people. Herbert J. Gans is correct in saying that the society relies on having some poor, but when all or most become poor, there is a major