Pattern Of Self-Destructiveness

In this week's chapters, I noticed a pattern of self-destructiveness behavior within the tenants. For example, Pam and Ned were approved for a good apartment in the Mexican south side which they were kicked out of because of Ned's drunken encounter with a neighbor. This led them to find a new place but this could have been avoided if Ned wouldn't have made a scene. I don't feel any empathy for Ned, I feel for Pam and her daughters who deal with a racist person every day. "One day he got a kick out of getting all the girls to march around the house chanting, "White power! (239)." This comment confirms that he is a racist and a white supremacist. Normally I would bash on Ned and how horrible of a person he is but through this book I've been

able to see his behavior and view it through a different lens. Desmond uses sociological thinking when tackling this topic by writing about all the factors/people that play a part in Ned's behavior. Ned's behavior comes from entitlement from society, such as the landlord who approved Ned and Pam for an apartment even after seeing their criminal and eviction background. But the landlord approved them because they were white. I noticed Desmond really wanted people to know why they were approved when they shouldn't have. Through this kind of thinking we can conclude that society/social systems can also be a factor in racism because they provide white people entitlement. This leads to white people blaming people of color for their misfortunate when it's their own race hurting them and social systems predominantly white holding them back.
Once we change our social systems and how society points a figure on a race for their misfortunate then will see change happen in our communities. I believe if white people didn't have the privilege they have right now then they wouldn't think they should be held up to a different standard. Another thing I noticed in this week's reading is the constant pattern of lying within the tenants to get housing. "Sometimes she had two children; sometimes one. Sometimes she received child support; sometimes they weren't. (232)" I believe Desmond wrote about they're lying not to expose them but to show the why? And what leads them to that stage. With Arlene its evident that desperate times call for desperate measures. She doesn't feel like she has no other choice but to lie in order to have somewhere to sleep. This is the case with many other tenants because lying is the lesser of two evils. I also believe pressure from different parties lead Arlene to lie because a landlord is pressuring her to be the best contender to rent an apartment, her kids add pressure because they need a place to sleep and society adds more pressure because she is expected to succeed as a single mother without any financial aid. I understand Arlene and other tenants that choose to lie because it's their only option. Desmond tries to showcase that as much as possible so people see that low-income families don't choose this life but rather this life in poverty chooses them by burying them more in financial ache.
I think this raises a big question for white people reading this book and that is do I agree with Ned's struggles and way thinking? If the answer is yes than we have a bigger problem in society when we can't recognize racism when we see it. The next question that raises for me is if I were in the position Arlene is in, would I lie to obtain an apartment? I can't give a definite answer because society might not discriminant against me like they do with Arlene.