Poverty in America

922 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial discrimination in America

People in America often suffer from poverty and the treatment that comes with it, throughout their everyday lives. The question raised is why are poor individuals dehumanized by high structures of power? Some people with a higher income feel like they have a choice and a real recourse to justice rather than a lower class individual. They also believe that they are entitled to the world and their opinion matters because of their financial status versus someone who doesn’t have material things. Lessin’s and Deal’s film , Natasha Trethewey’s Memoir, and Bell Hooks’ excerpts, depicts that the poor are often dehumanized and neglected by structures of power, such as the government and media, because of their lack of money and education, however some of structures of power are ignorant to how the lives of poor people really are.
The film, Trouble the Water, directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, is a testimonial story of an inspirational couple, Kimberly Roberts, who is an aspiring rapper, and Scott Roberts, an ex-drug dealer, that survived Hurricane Katrina, the failed levees of New Orleans, and their horrible past. After the storm they found inspiration, and gained a new outlook on life. Even though, Kim and Scott were dehumanized and neglected by the government, they still managed to keep faith and stay strong throughout their recovery process. Kim and Scott heard about the Hurricane but couldn’t afford to leave New Orleans. The couple lived in the ninth ward, which was a place where people with low or no income would live. After the disastrous storm hit, they believed that even though they did not have much, life wasn’t over yet. They didn’t resist agency and with the very little education they had, they found quick strategies to help...

... middle of paper ...

...he horrible aftermath of the storm. This conveys that poverty and intelligence has no correlation, meaning that one’s intellectual level has nothing to do with their financial status.

Works Cited

"fema." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 15 Nov. 2013. .
Hooks, Bell. "Narratives of Struggle." Critical Fictions:The Poltics of Imagnitive Writing. N.p.: Dia Center for the Arts, 1991. 53-61. Print.
---"Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor." Outlaw Culture:Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge, 1994. 431-37. Print.
Trethewey, Natasha. Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Athens: U of Georgia, 2010. 83-125. Print.
Trouble the Water. Dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. Perf. Kimberly Roberts and Scott Roberts. HBO Network- Home Box Office, 2008. DVD.

Show More
Related

  • Donald Worster's Levees Analysis

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    Donald Worster introduces a framework for analyzing environmental history along the three dimensions of culture, social organization, and nature, which can be used to investigate how the ‘levees only’ approach to managing the waters of the Mississippi River set the scene for the disastrous effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana (4-5). The ‘levees only’ approach grew from and promoted certain cultural, social, and natural conditions in New Orleans, and each of these elements critically interacted to contribute to the human and environmental destruction unleashed by Katrina. Cultural, social, and natural elements of Worster’s framework individually shaped the essential preconditions of the Katrina disaster. Culturally, New Orleans’s

    Read More

  • Analysis of Dave Egger's Zeitoun

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dave Eggers events of looting are an accurate portrayal of Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke. Works Cited Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun. San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2009. Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of One Dead In Attic By Chris Rose

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    A storm such as Katrina undoubtedly ruined homes and lives with its destructive path. Chris Rose touches upon these instances of brokenness to elicit sympathy from his audience. Throughout the novel, mental illness rears its ugly head. Tales such as “Despair” reveal heart-wrenching stories emerging from a cycle of loss. This particular article is concerned with the pull of New Orleans, its whisper in your ear when you’ve departed that drags you home. Not home as a house, because everything physical associated with home has been swept away by the storm and is now gone. Rather, it is concerned with home as a feeling, that concept that there is none other than New Orleans. Even when there is nothing reminiscent of what you once knew, a true New Orleanian will seek a fresh start atop the foundation of rubbish. This is a foreign concept for those not native to New Orleans, and a New Orleanian girl married to a man from Atlanta found her relationship split as a result of flooding waters. She was adamant about staying, and he returned to where he was from. When he came back to New Orleans for her to try and make it work, they shared grim feelings and alcohol, the result of which was the emergence of a pact reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This couple decided they would kill themselves because they could see no light amongst the garbage and rot, and failure was draining them of any sense of optimism. She realized the fault in this agreement,

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Bell Hooks Seeing And Making Culture: Representing The Poor By Bell Hooks

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    hooks recalls from personal experience the lessons she learned when she was growing up in a poor family. She says that in her household, no one was ashamed of living in poverty; instead, it was a “breeding ground of moral integrity” (hooks 433). hooks remembers her parents and grandparents teaching her about the value and the worth of a person. She grew up knowing that a person’s value was worth more than their material possessions (433). In addition, her grandparents informed her that no matter how many degrees a person may have, it did not prove their intelligence nor integrity (433).

    Read More

  • Nor Any Drop To Drink: A Case Study Of Denise In AD

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Josh Neufeld’s Trauma novel, A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge the personal aspects of Hurricane Katrina are emphasized and explored. The book follows representative Katrina survivors, highlighting their experiences and coping with the aftermath of the storm. None of characters in the book are presented as having the “right” answers, but Denise, had a full experience of the chaos, horror, and destruction that Katrina inflicted on New Orleans. She had full exposure of the traumatic event, and the novel gives the reader a unique insight into her experiences.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Many Died In Their Attic By Chris Rose

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    He does not provide statistics or matter-of-fact statements to present the outcomes of Katrina. Instead, Rose writes about what he himself experiences as a result of the storm. This author is not weaving together a tale of imaginary faces in an attempt to gain sympathy. He writes as himself experiencing instances of tragedy, camaraderie, and despondency. There is no logical format for what subject matter he may explore. In this anthology of articles he utilizes dark humor, such as when he writes of the stench and subsequent war of refrigerators; optimism, such as when he describes the characters that remain and the absoluteness of Mardi Gras; nostalgia, such as when he reflects upon memories with his children and his first visit to New Orleans; and dejection, such as instances when he himself begins to lose hope and realize the poor outlook for his

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dave Egger's Zeitoun

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Abdulrahnam Zeitoun and his family’s experience with Hurricane Katrina is summarized and documented in the novel Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers. Throughout the events of the novel, the reader learns its purpose is to inform the audience of the shocking tragedy and burden the storm placed on the Zeitoun family. Rhetorical appeals, the Muslim religion, media, the government’s involvement in the city, and the audience the book was trying to reach all play important roles in the story of the storm that devastated all of New Orleans. Egger’s novel not only informs, it also entertains, explains, and exposes, as well as documenting the events of the storm and the Zeitoun family’s story.

    Read More

  • Hell Or High Water Scene Analysis

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most important mise-en-scene element in Hell or High Water is the setting. Setting the movie in the wide-open wild-west Texas spaces is important because it underlies the independent Texas spirit which leads the brothers to fight against corporate greed. The wide open wild-west Texas spaces represent independence. The independent spirit can be found in many places in the film including the “Come and Take It” flag in the mobile home. This independent mindset has

    Read More

  • A River Runs Through It

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    A River Runs Through It is a film about brotherhood, the connection between all things, and the idea that one can never fully understand another. Norman and Paul Maclean’s story is one that is not unheard of before, but using Mise-En-Scene techniques such as score, lighting, and distance of subject, Robert Redford turns a seemingly common story into a very meaningful one.

    Read More

  • The Myth Of Poverty In America

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    As stated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, “the test of our progression is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Many people may agree with this statement considering that the United States is such a wealthy country and in 2012, 46.5 million people were living in poverty in the United States and 15% of all Americans and 21.8% of children under age eighteen were in poverty.The honest truth is that many people do not know the conditions this group of people must live in on a daily basis because of the small number of people who realize the struggle there is not a great amount of service. In the article Too stressed for Success, the author Kevin Clarke asks the question “What is the cost of being poor in America?” and follows the question by explaining the great deals of problems the community of poverty goes through daily by saying, “Researchers have long known that because of a broad reduction in retail and other consumer choices experienced by America's poor, it is often simply more expensive to be poor in the United States.

    Read More

  • Poverty in the United States

    886 Words  | 2 Pages

    It certainly seems peculiar how so much disparity exists among the haves and have-nots in the country that leads the free world. The high level of poverty in the United States coupled with the disparaging rates of income are at times hard to comprehend. How can a country of such great wealth and power also be a country of vast poverty? Poverty will always be evident in the United States to some extent. However, minimizing poverty and income inequality will be conducive to the well being of the United States.

    Read More

  • Poverty and Classism

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.

    Read More

  • Policy Solutions for Jobless Poverty

    1782 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wilson, William J. "Jobless Poverty." The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender. Ed. David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi. 2md ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011. 159-69. Print.

    Read More

  • Compare and contrast the way the poets show the problems affecting the

    1445 Words  | 3 Pages

    set in a hot country, where there is a shortage of water, as told in

    Read More

  • Hurricane Katrina: Causes, Effects, and Aftermath

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fink, Sheri. "Hurricane Katrina: after the flood." The Gaurdian. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

More about Poverty in America

Open Document