Selling in the Barrio: The Culture of Poverty

1168 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Negative effect of poverty

Multiple studies have been completed to show that people from all racial groups and ethnicities are negatively affected by poverty. Those in the lowest social class, while a mix of ethnicities, are predominantly minorities and affected the most. What stood out about Philippe Bourgeois’ is that he not only studies the people and their culture but he lived it with them. Mr. Bourgois spent two years with his wife and child living with the Puerto Rican’s in East Harlem, NY. He lived with them and became a friend to many of them with the hopes of providing an accurate analysis of their culture. While living there he encountered all of the barrios social problems; from gender inequality to drugs and illegal activities to racial segregation. Above all the main social problem that the people of East Harlem encounter is poverty. One reason these people are trapped in the drug ridden, crime filled, and violence laced streets of East Harlem is because they do not know any different. Many of the people Bourgois befriended attempted to find legal work. Some of them were successful at finding the jobs but not all too successful at keeping them. For instance Bourgois closest friend, Primo got a job working for the ASPCA(American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) At this jobs the management knew that many prospective employees would not be able to handle the rigors of the job and therefor they over hired expecting some to quit or lose their jobs. After a few days Primo realized he could not maintain composure around dead cats and dogs. It was then that the management fired him. (Bourgois, 2003) Again he attempted legal work, this time in a publishing office. While this job initially seemed as though it would work out for Primo,... ... middle of paper ... ... social class marginalization in a major U.S. inner city culture. Bourgois did well explaining the social problems as well as his ideas of solutions and temporary solutions to the problems faced by most people who live in poverty. As a nation the United States must take a long, hard look at its inner cities, where the most severe poverty is found. There are many solutions to the problem of crime and violence that are being used today and yet they seem ineffective. This is due to the fact that the root cause of the crimes and violence is extreme poverty. As Bourgois said most of those who live and “work” in the barrio are looking or respect and a sense of dignity. (Bourgois, 2003) The problem is that they will never reach the success they are looking for without first helping other Americans to realize that the social status of the poor is what is holding them back.

Show More
Related

  • Bettie's Analysis Of Mexican-American And White Girls

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    Race becomes important because it is often the unconscious method of discrimination in the educational structure in Waretown. The Mexican-American girls who become upwardly mobile are seen as the exception. White girls who became upwardly mobile didn’t face any dissonant reactions when they achieved mobility because it was normalized of the white race. Mexican-American girls, however, did face dissonance because it was not typically expected of them. They would often fight the administration much more than white girls in order to avoid being placed on the vocational track and have to work harder to stay out of it. The exceptionality of these girls proves how important and influential cultural capital is in shaping class futures. Only a small fraction of working-class and Mexican-American girls were upwardly mobile, largely due to the fact that they didn’t have the needed cultural capital. There had to be intervening factors, such as sports, private schools, or siblings, in order for these girls to gain the cultural capital needed to be mobile. Without this cultural capital, many of the working-class girls would have had the same future as their parents and remained working class. Cultural capital becomes key for shaping class

    Read More

  • The Original Underclass Analysis

    293 Words  | 1 Pages

    One of the most critical observations about the state of our sociological health is observed by MacGillis of the Atlantic’s article entitled “The Original Underclass”. That is that the social breakdown of low-income whites began to reflect trends that African American’s were primary subjects of decades ago such as unemployment, and drug addiction.

    Read More

  • Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book deals with several sociological issues. It focuses on poverty, as well as s...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Black Picket Fences By Mary Pattillo

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    Specifically, she found that members of the Black middle class still face income and wealth disadvantages, housing segregation, limited job opportunities, racial discrimination, family disruption, and crime victimization, among other social problems, at a higher rate than their White middle-class counterparts. As a result, Pattillo (2013) concluded that Black middle-class neighborhoods often “sit as a kind of buffer between core black poverty areas and whites” (p. 4). Otherwise put, the Black middle class are situated in a position between middle-class Whites and underclass Blacks, where they are not at parity with the former, and are only slightly better than the

    Read More

  • More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City

    1316 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilson, William J. More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York: Norton & Company, 2009. Print.

    Read More

  • Poverty in Everyday Use, Sonny's Blues, and The Cathedral

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    The notion of poverty has a very expanded meaning. Although all three stories use poverty as their theme, each interprets it differently. Consequently, it does not necessarily mean the state of extreme misery that has been described in ?Everyday Use?. As Carver points out, poverty may refer to poverty of one?s mind, which is caused primarily by the lack of education and stereotyped personality. Finally, poverty may reflect the hopelessness of one?s mind. Realizing that no bright future awaits them, Harlem kids find no sense in their lives. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of realizing their full potential does not derive from achieving standards that are unachievable by others. Instead, it arises uniquely from denigrating others, as the only way to be higher than someone is to put this person lower than you.

    Read More

  • Crack In Spanish Harlem Summary

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bourgois argues that the racism inflicted by the dominant race unto the inferior race is supressed to a personal level. The structural racism in inner city is so extreme that the only ‘legal’ job available to them are ones that are considered as the least desirable jobs in the US, offering low income and racial abuse from their racist bosses. Since the self-reinforced marginalization is destined to keep them powerless and at the bottom of the US economy; the likes of working in an illegal, underground economy may sound appealing as it not only offer

    Read More

  • Race in the Movie City of God

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    The movie City of God, showed the incredible world of gang youth in the undeveloped area of Rio de Janeiro, where gangs ruled the streets and young children were initiated into murder before they were teenagers. The urbanization of the third world is creating sub-cultures that are filed with chaos and run by crime, most of which is the result of drugs and other illegal activities. In his article Race the Power of an Illusion, Dalton Conley says, “the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s really marks both an opportunity and a new danger in terms of racial relations in America. On the one hand, the Civil Rights era officially ended inequality of opportunity. It officially ended de jure legal inequality, so it was no longer legal for employers, for landlords, or for any public institution or accommodations to discriminate based on race. At the same time, those civil rights triumphs did nothing to address the underlying economic and social inequalities that had already been in place because of hundreds of years of inequality.” (Conley, 1). Though the Civil Rights movement was able to get equal rights for blacks, it could not stop the brutality that still plagued them. The urban setting is so overcrowded that the people are living on top of each other.

    Read More

  • Flavio's Home: A Tale of Desperate Poverty

    295 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the story “Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks, he draws you into a world that is very descriptive and allows yourself to imagine what it would be like if you were standing there with him. Gordon was there with Life reporter Jose Gallo to find a father with a family to examine the poverty of that particular family in Rio de Janeiro. Instead they came across a boy named Flavio, they followed Flavio up the mountain to a leaning shack. Flavio was only twelve but had worked so hard from the time he could stand that his body had taken the toll. Gordon describes the favela of Catacumba, pale by comparison to New York’s Harlem and Chicago’s south side. In so doing this gives the readers in those populated city’s an idea of how much greater the poverty

    Read More

  • Summary Of In Search Of Respect: Selling Crack In El Barrio

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    For Bourgois, he believes that “given the dimensions of structural oppression in the United States, it is atheoretical to expect isolated policy initiatives, or even short-term political reforms, to remedy the plight of the poor……. Racism and class segregation in the United States are shaped in too complex a mesh of political-economic structural forces, historical legacies, cultural imperatives, and individual actions to be susceptible to simple solutions (p.318)”. He says that “he cannot resign himself to the terrible irony that the richest industrialized nation on earth, and the greatest world power in history, confines so many of its citizens to poverty and to prison

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Black On The Block

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    Pattillo references the benefits received by NKO as a result of its close proximity to Bronzeville, a predominantly African American community that was thriving as a black Mecca in the fifties and sixties with plentiful black businesses, which served as a safe haven for black life in Chicago. NKO was such a wondrous place that even the late Blues legend Muddy Waters called it home proving its allure. Unfortunately, when Dr. Pattillo shifts gears and provides context to the decline of NKO, she brings up the construction of the Olander Housing Projects, overcrowding as a result of subsidized housing along with increases in crime, drugs, and the rise of the poverty level. While her research is factual, she fails to mention the lack of middlemen by way of the black middle class to serve as conduits to prevent the unfortunate fate of NKO. She instead indirectly criminalizes and places blame on a number of variables specifically the residents of the projects with no mention of the emerging black middle class not using their power to evoke change in their respected

    Read More

  • Growin Up In the Hood

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    When a child is growing up he is frequently asked what he is going to do for money when he gets older. The more this question is asked to them, the more they feel like they have to have money to be happy in life. After many tries of trying to make a stable life at a low paying job, a criminal life maybe more appealing to them at they may start living life under the gun. As stated by William Wilson in When Work Disappears, “Neighborhoods plagued by high levels of joblessness are more likely to experience low levels of social organization, they go hand in hand.” In Chicago for instance, in 1990 there was only one in three in the twelve ghetto communities that had held a job in a typical workweek of the year. When there are high rates of joblessness bigger problems surface such as violent crime, gang violence, and drug trafficking. (Wilson P356-362)

    Read More

  • Poverty in the African American Community

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Natural Support of African Americans in poverty is to lower food bills in families by cooking instead of buying fast foods. The culture of poverty “is perceived to be a worldview and ethos contributing to poor people staying in poverty.” (Rogers, 131) it is seen as people who are in poverty are the connection of their offspring who seem to also have a difficult time to move up higher in society. “Children learn from their parents that laziness is a way of life, as is receiving food stamps every month; children never gain the motivation to work their way...

    Read More

  • Haiti And The System Of Poverty In America And Haiti

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    America and Haiti’s social system works by everyone belonging into a different category of class. Few people belong to the 1 percent, some in the middle and the rest live in poverty. Some people many argue that poverty doesn’t exist in United States because it is one of the richest countries, but poverty seems to be hidden. Meanwhile in Haiti, poverty is every visible because natural disasters and the people on top have caused it. In both countries, poverty turns into misogyny because people view women as object. Therefore, the system of social class in America is similar to other countries in their problems, although the main difference is that poverty in America can be invisible.

    Read More

  • Oscar Lewis's Five Families: The Culture Of Poverty

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is hard for the poor to gain social mobility because of their background It focuses on how been poor is more than just a matter of income.

    Read More

More about Selling in the Barrio: The Culture of Poverty

Open Document