Term Paper on Poverty

term Paper on Poverty Prejudice, affluence, and need in America argon colligate issues. Works by four authors discussed in this essay, Takaki, F everyows, Olds, and Gioia, jockstrap us to understand how the affable issues of class and race argon intertwined, do an analysis of both necessary for an fitted understanding of any wiz individually. piece the authors discussed here approach the issues from different angles, their whole kit and caboodle taken spot by side clearly show us how diagonal functions the affluent shrug off responsibility toward the paltry, offering descriptions as to why whatsoever groups (or persons) catch virtuosos breath in privation and others do non.Additionally, it is argued that those funding in affluence and olibanum those with the means to signifi enduretly address the meagerness issue may, in fact, collect a reduced awargonness of the existence and world of destitution. As a result, non provided is poverty per se not address (we wear downt address what we dont see), but the existing myths and prejudices that help to maintain class divisions, both in society at large and insert in our sound and favorable structures, remain unchallenged.However, it is sole(prenominal) by examining both the nonsubjective nature of the live era unitedly with prejudice and the self-justification of the affluent that one can understand how prejudice, affluence, and poverty ar intertwined. The nature of money, tally to Gioias metrical composition titled simply Money, shapes the man of demeanor for both the abstruse and the abject, according to how much they have or dont have. Gioias poem reminds us of the many a(prenominal) meanings we accord to money, how we need it and unload it, and how it functions in our economy. One of the clear messages in Gioias poem is that money, itself, does not discriminate.It is what it is disregarding of who has it, but for those who have it, it grows and multiplies. For those who dont have it, or dont have enough of it, it does not. If money itself does not discriminate, how do we account for the bed covering among those who argon affluent and those who are poor? What pr horizontalts some from getting it, while others have enough for it to grow? How we answer this question, and the system of logic behind our answer, is very connected to form _or_ system of regime decisions we deal concerning poverty, and how effective we are in addressing it.One of our traditional explanations for the why the poor are poor and the rich are rich, according to the American political theory, is that the poor are those who have not browseed sufficiently to meet money. Likewise, those who have money, according to the comparable political orientation, are those who have been frugal, doinged fractious, saved, wisely invested, and who have other than subsistd right. Takaki, in his article lead at the End of History, provides a summary of how this is embedded in ou r ideology The American dream still holds expect to all us as Americans.Everyone, regardless(prenominal) of race, can make it into the mainstream by dint of hard work and private effort. (p. 387). This kind of definition, and the ideology behind it, makes it possible to approach polity issues in such a counsel that places overtake responsibility on those who are poor for their own plight. As Takaki points out, our tension is on the fact that success is to be hitd by means of private means, rather than government assistance (p. 387). Addressing poverty then becomes a question of getting those who are not working hard enough, not living right, to do so.This definition of poverty allows us to say, those who have a social lions share of wealthiness be that wealth, and those who are in poverty, deserve that poverty. Viewed this carriage, in that respect is no reason, then, to seriously listen to claims of frappe ceilings or discrimination, or to attend in any other way at prejudices built into our social and legal structures that unfairly increase the odds for some, and reduce them for others. How is it that, in the face of evident move poverty among authorized ethnic or racial groups, we continue to believe in this ideology?Surely, by now enough tell apart of systematic discrimination, glass ceilings, and other obstacles for precise racial and ethnic (and gender) groups has shown us that the American dream as summed up by Takaki is based at least partly on a myth. Yet many people still agree with, for example, what Takaki suggests (p. 385) Francis Fukuyamas explanation is that poverty is a occasion of ethnic difference. Parillo, in Causes of Prejudice, and Fallows in The Invisible slimy each help us to understand forces at work that help to perpetuate the myth point in the face of a self-contradictory reality.Parillo points to prejudice and the continuation of prejudice through the socialization process. Defining prejudice as an attitud inal system of negative beliefs, feelings, and action-orientations regarding a certain group or groups of people (p. 548), Parillo argues that, through the socialization process, harmful views consciously or unconsciously adopted during childhood can then continue into adulthood, and translate into prejudicious choices and behavior in work, social life, and life choices.Additionally, widespread and generally shared prejudicial beliefs and attitudes toward particular(prenominal) groups can be implicitly (or explicitly) reinforced by society at large through, for example, the legal system and cultural norms (p. 557). New generations may not be alert to these subtle reinforcers of prejudicial attitudes and practices, and thereof may not question them. The habitual stereotypes and prejudices are thus maintained and continue as they are adopted by reinvigorated generations, and as they continue to be sanctified by the surrounding legal and societal framework.If children acquire the ir beliefs from their parents through socialization, what prevents them from question those values? Surely, we are not all sheep, that unthinkingly accept everything we hear. One explanation that Parillo offers (pp. 550-551) is Self-Justification, that we need reassurance that the things we do and the lives we live are proper, that good reasons for our actions exist. One way in which this surfaces, he argues, is through a dominant group convincing itself that it is superlative to other groups, causing them to associate less frequently or not at all with those groups it deems inferior.Fallows article The Invisible Poor clearly shows how this phenomenon is a reality of our current era of tech wealth, describing the lightless social restraint surrounded by rich and poor people a barrier so great as to make the poor invisible to the rich. Within the tech wealth era, according to Fallows, the production of wealth involves fewer blue collar workers, so that those directly benefiti ng from it are not confronted with the realities, struggles, and demand of those less like them.In terms of economic background, there is more than similitude between the workers producing and benefiting from the peeled wealth. Second, the nature of work at heart the tech industry isolates those within it into an insulated world. Long working hours, a minimum amount of leisure time, and social lives principally focused virtually those within the same world further contributes to the lack of consciousness and connectedness to the rest of the world around them. Third, he points to the racial meritocracy of the tech industry, with workers and contributors coming from all corners of the globe.He argues that this racial salmagundi among the tech blind drunk leaves them out of situation with the more basic and traditional racial tensions among the less wealthy, and the ways in which those in minority groups not associated with the tech wealthy are still disadvantaged. While Fallows offers a great deal of support for these specific phenomena of the tech wealth era as objective phenomena, which may indeed be at work, combining an analysis of these phenomena with Parrillos analysis of prejudice and self-justification offers a fuller understanding of our current era.Sharon Olds, in her poem From Seven Floors Up shows, for example, how even if there are objective forces at work such as those discussed by Fallows, there is still an attitudinal factor at work when those more affluent are confronted with the reality of poverty, they are looking from seven floors up, through prejudice and self-justification, will more likely (however unwittingly)do not believe it could be a reality of their lives.In sum, effrontery that money itself does not discriminate, and given the overwhelming evidence that there are obstacles to wealth other than the personal failure to achieve the American Dream, we must look for a fuller explanation of the gap between the rich and the poor. The relationship between affluence and poverty consists not barely of objective forces such as new forms of wealth production or characteristics of new economic eras, but more concretely of prejudice.The very real obstacles to wealth encountered by specific societal groups, and embedded in our social and legal structures ,are not only due to the transference of values from one generation to the next, but due to the continued need for self-justification among the affluent. The product of self-justification, prejudice, is the link up between affluence and poverty that needfully to be analyzed and addressed if social policies concerning poverty are to be effective.