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Poverty and social status
Briefly discuss the culture of poverty and social – structural reasons to explain the causes of poverty
Poverty and social status
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According to Curley, for many years poverty has been a developing problem worldwide. Many individuals have questioned as to why poverty even exists and how long has poverty actually been around. In today’s society urban neighborhoods are mostly classified as poverty stricken areas. This is because it mostly populated with African American and Hispanics. Many believe that jobless individuals, females being head of household, segregation and crime are all contributing facts to poverty. (Curley 2005) In what terms can the phrase “culture of poverty” be defined? Many individuals live within their means of what they can actually afford. Poverty can be seen as a norm passed down from generation to generation. Government officials have criticized …show more content…
There is a significant amount of reasons for a theorist to focus on those three main points because of residential segregation. Society has categorized how one is even considered for a job by using the zip code in which they reside. This is also becoming a problem within the educational system. As it relates to housing many blacks are often receiving public housing. Since public housing is located mostly in very low poverty stricken areas that house mostly African Americans. By locating public housing in those areas, they are separating the blacks, Hispanics’ and whites. By doing so, it is also resulting in limitations. Blacks are only limited to what is around them due to lack of transportation and only limiting them to their own kind. …show more content…
They feel that it is the only functioning way of life. They see no need to set goals for their selves because no one is encouraging them differently. Kids believe that they have to set a name for their selves within the community and social media. They feel the need to have social power but lack the need for the educational power to overcome a horrible situation. Without the greater need to receive an education it gives the government a reason to continue putting blacks into categories. However, blacks are not the only individuals living within urban stricken areas. Regardless, that many whites are not in urban areas there are some who existed within those areas. However, they don 't look down on them as much as they do blacks because government officials see them as social support for the areas. (Pp.103-104) When the public housing act was formed it was meant to help working families. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case because public housing now is helping those who are in dispersed need of a home. Many taxpayers have questioned the government decisions on changing the policy. Blacks are not the only individuals who receive public housing, but many white working families moved out of public housing because they refuse to deal with the behaviors that blacks display. Without working families in public housing, it brought
David K. Shipler in his essay At the Edge of Poverty talks about the forgotten America. He tries to make the readers feel how hard is to live at the edge of poverty in America. Shipler states “Poverty, then, does not lend itself to easy definition” (252). He lays emphasis on the fact that there is no single universal definition of poverty. In fact poverty is a widespread concept with different dimensions; every person, country or culture has its own definition for poverty and its own definition of a comfortable life.
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
When beginning the readings in the module about poverty, I was struck by a sense of shame. Jenson & Fraser (2011) have some pretty hard-hitting statistics and the graphs did a really good job illustrating the prevalence and trends in poverty; I really appreciated graph 2.1, which displays the racial and ethnic disparities that exist for children experiencing poverty, because it demonstrates how the national rate of childhood poverty can be deceptive (26-30).
Segregation still exists in the world today, racial divides affect many individuals in the areas of healthcare, education, access to mortgages, etc. (Mago, Vijay K et al. “Analyzing the Impact of Social Factors on Homelessness: A Fuzzy Cognitive Map Approach.) Black americans are most affected by homelessness. In the article written by the New York Times, the rate of black families attending homeless shelters is 7 times higher than white families. (Nagourney, Adam. “Old and on the Street: The Graying of America's Homeless.) It is no secret that whites are given priority, and privilege over people of other races. Most African Americans grow up in poverty, and it is hard for them to move up in social class because they are not given as many opportunities as others. White men and women are given privilege over others, which causes an effect on society. According to
Ghettos, low-riders, hip-hop, rap, drugs and crime, it has got to be a Black man right? Saggy pants, unintelligible language, lazy, and the lists continue to both stereotype and describe Blacks. Do Black Americans perpetuate their own discrimination? Are Black Americans creating their own low status in society? Black people around the world have been hypnotized into believing all their failures in life are due to discrimination, but are they correct? Blacks are often their own worst enemies, often the cause of their own disasters, and many don’t see that until it’s too late, if ever. Discrimination and prejudice are imposed upon Blacks, often because the culture they live in is not “acceptable” to the dominant society. On the other hand, an understandable reason for Blacks actions is often due to unattainable opportunities towards the American Dream.
From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in
Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.
Today, the United States is considered to be one of the most diverse countries in the world with regards to its citizens being of a different race and ethnic background other than white, but sadly this was not always the case. During the post-emancipation era, also known as the period of “redemption” for southern whites, was a time of great racial violence and hate from most white individuals, typically farm and plantation owners, towards the newly freed slaves emancipated after the civil war, which of whom were predominantly black. Right before the civil war, society was separated into two racial hierarchies: white, and black. If an individual was of any color other than white they were labeled as a slave and considered someone’s, referring to white slave owners, property. After the civil war America’s social lifestyle and overall government changed dramatically due to the emancipation of slaves in the south. When African Americans were emancipated the idea and concept that was once accepted, any individual other than white is considered to be insubordinate and a slave, was now abolished and considered inhumane. This caused a major disruption within society because former slave owners lost huge amounts of manpower that use to work and generate profit by making enslaved individuals farm their land. As a result, once wealthy farmers and plantation owners became the poorest of poor with no one to work their fields and no money to even hire anyone because of post-war fees that needed to be paid. With that being said, African Americans are considered now to be citizens of the United States but sadly were not treated equally by their white peers till the Civil Rights Act (1964); and from the time of reconstruction through the period of...
Poverty has been a growing problem in America, and it most likely will never stop being one. Someone who is identified as being in poverty lives beneath the poverty line determined by the Federal government. The poverty line in 2015 for a family of four was $24,250. These are the people who are really considered poor. Poverty isn’t just a problem in the United States; in fact, other countries struggle just as much, if not more, than the United States does. Many people struggle to keep themselves above the government’s poverty line, shown by the fact that the percent of poor people in America hasn’t drastically changed over the years. However, it is possible to get out of, and ultimately stay out of, poverty.
When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is not the poverty can not be overcome but that the cycles of teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and dropping out of high school continues and are hard to break. The badges of poverty are just as addictive and capitiving as any disease such as alcohol or drugs.
The culture of poverty suggests that the poor people have bad hygiene, have diseases, lack education and can only be able to work hard manual labor, and this has been the prejudice associated with poverty-stricken people. People with a culture of poverty have no sense of history. They are people who hold strong feelings of helplessness, not belonging and marginality. The culture of poverty states that poor people are unmotivated and have poor work ethics. It also states that poor parents are uninvolved in their child's learning process because they do not value education, and this creates the cycle of poverty. In that, the children will lack the necessary skills to succeed in society. The culture of poverty also states that poor people are linguistically deficient and they tend to abuse drugs and alcohol, (Phillipe 2001).
According to Saunders (2005) what are the consequences of living in poverty? How does it affect children and family life?
Poverty is an undeniable problem in America. In 2014, 14.8 percent of the United States was in poverty (“Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet”). There are more people in the United States than it seems that do not have their basic necessities. In an
Sociological data clearly shows that the black family is slowly but surely deteriorating especially in terms of broken homes. From 1950 until now, the amount of black children living only with their mothers has almost tripled. This phenomena can be attributed to many factors. Absent fathers paired with the independency we see in black women are two main reasons that contribute to this issue. These two ideas date back to before the 20th century when slavery was in full effect. “Social theorists have argues that slavery resulted in disorganization...