Lisa Jacuzzi
M. Williams
English 1A
21 December 2013
Poverty
Stereotypes
All
it takes is just the first glance.
People will make judgments about others after just one look at someone. Many times it is just simply stereotypes,
and often untrue. Stereotypes
are a simplified image or idea of a particular type of person. They are generalized and often inapplicable. An easily stereotyped group of people are
those in poverty, people who are living paycheck to paycheck even before the
economic downturn.
Travis Smiley and Cornel West went around America to find different locations
where the amount of poverty is increasing, and documented their travels in the
book The Rich and the Rest of Us.
Their book provokes the general public to think about and talk about what it
would be like to live in poverty.
Hopefully this book will put a stop to the spread of stereotypes. Poverty stereotypes need to be stopped
because they reinforce a negative image and are more often than not untrue.
Many
of those in poverty will not admit that they hold the status of “poor”. When Smiley and West traveled around America
visiting some of the poorest cities in the country, they were welcomed in
several but were asked to leave and not come back in others. In
one Mississippi city, Brenda Caradine protested the fact that they were coming
to her town. “To
many, poverty is regarded as a personal declaration of failure, a measure of
fundamental unworthiness, or, as in Caradine’s case, a blight on an upstanding
community” (Smiley 72). Caradine
did not want to believe that her community was poor. She could not see the truth that people in
her town are struggling to survive. The
word poverty has some terrible stereotypes that accompany it.
The
stereotypes are predominately enforced by those in the 1%. The 1% are the wealthiest people in America,
which is only made up of forty people, yet they control over forty-two percent
of the nation’s wealth.
Often they buy out government officials who then try to pass laws that make 1%
lives easier which in turn makes the middle to lower classes lives harder. One example is Newt Gingrich. He, like so many other wealthy people, does
not understand what it is like to live in poverty so he stereotypes them. “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich invoked
the familiar specter of negative racial stereotypes when he labeled President
Barack Obama the ‘best food stamp President in American history’ and called on
African Americans in particular to ‘demand paychecks and not be satisfied with
food stamps’” (Smiley 21).
Gingrich does not know nor understand how difficult it is to get out of poverty. Being poor is not a choice, the poor cannot
just ask for paychecks.
Some people work hard and after they get their paycheck all the money would
have to go to paying their bills.
Since all their money is now gone food stamps is their only option.
A
possible solution is the method known as “walking a mile in another’s shoes”. Not every person living in poverty is
African American.
Ronnie McHugh who is Caucasian and lives in Pennsylvania has lived in poverty
ever since she and her husband lost their jobs at about the same time. “The debate audience should walk in her
shoes, McHugh told a reporter from Equal
Voice. If
so, perhaps they’d appreciate government programs - any program – that helped hard-working people impacted by the
recession” (Smiley 22). Perhaps
if the politicians lived like McHugh they would stop trying to take away the
programs that help them. They
would learn what it is like living paycheck to paycheck and trying to feed
their family. However
there is fallacy in this plan. The
wealthy who experience poverty, for say a month, know that they will be able to
escape the living conditions the poor endure.
Therefore their experience is not as harsh as the reality for those who live
through poverty daily.
Overall,
the stereotypes placed on the poor are an imperfect description of the people
living in poverty.
There are some who fit the stereotypes, such being an African American or being
lazy and irresponsible, but there are many more who do not adhere to those
specifications, therefore not fitting the stereotype at all. Many of those people who do not fit the
poverty stereotypes deny that they are part of the poverty class. These stereotypes are reinforced by the
wealthiest Americans who have no idea what it is really like being poor. If these wealthy Americans learned
first-hand what it is like in poverty then maybe some of these stereotypes
would go away. For
them to learn first-hand the wealthy Americans should live like the poor so
they understand how hard it really is being in poverty. Poverty stereotypes are often untrue and
should be stopped.
Works
Cited
Smiley, Travis, and Cornel
West. The Rich and the Rest of
Us: A Poverty Manifesto.
New
York: Smiley, 2012.
Print.
