Analysis Of Loewen's 'The Land Of Opportunity'

America tries to stand for equality, but our system does not properly help the disadvantaged. In “The Land of Opportunity” Loewen’s first year college students do not understand why people are poor and simply think that it is their own fault for being poor. High school students are not learning about social inequality or class structure. The ideas that they are going to College with are not accurate and the textbooks in public schools are partially to blame for this. Coming from a background of poverty, Bell Hooks understands the moral values and work ethic of the poor and the privileged. In “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Hooks represents the poor to show that in America the image of being rich is viewed from many perspectives

The only type of media left out of Loewen’s article is social media and the younger generations are major consumers in the twenty first century. Watkins article uses the specific social media platforms Facebook and Myspace. Facebook typically had white users that were considered middle class. However, Myspace users were usually Black or Latino and came from the working class. People use social media to interact and trends of social stratification are apparent. TV is not interactive so the division of classes should not be as obvious, but “Poor people are more likely to watch TV.” (Loewen, 204). Hooks feels that “Television shows and films bring the message home that no one can truly feel good about themselves if they are poor.” (Hooks, 434). He uses Pretty Woman as evidence for this and says that the show portrays the ruling class or rich as “generous, eager to share, and as unattached to their wealth in their interactions with folks who are not materially privileged.” This sends a stronger message than interacting with others of a social media because it is not reality. TV can really send the wrong message to the poor or the rich. The privileged may get the idea that they have to take care of the poor, when the poor are hardworking people with values and morals just like the rich. From this the poor may see themselves as not as competent in society. Hooks mentions that self-esteem issues

In “The Land of Opportunity” it is said that the poor tend to work blue collar jobs, while the middle class and wealthy work white collar. In America we are outsourcing most of our blue collar jobs so as is, the jobs are hard to find. Remember that the people who decide to outsource are the middle class or wealthy because they are in charge of the white collar affairs. Hooks noticed while in college that the students thought of the poor as “shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy” (Hooks, 433). This stereotype ends up affecting the poor because the decisions are made by a lot of these educated and higher privileged people. Some of the words used to describe the MySpace users, who were considered to be less lower class included “Trashy”, “General Public”, and “Uneducated” (Watkins, 509). These words have a lot of meaning because they are coming from the college students in the survey conducted by