Summary
In the article, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor,” Bell Hooks, discusses the issues of poverty. One of her claims is that America has negative attitudes and stereotypes towards poverty; she believes poverty is not something that should be looked down upon in society. Hooks has also observed the way these ideas have affected people’s views on poverty. She goes on about how poor people are degraded in media, the negative associations with poverty, and how people in poverty lives aren’t valued. Hooks uses the example of the movie Pretty Woman to show her audience how the underprivileged are shown to willingly demean themselves for material plenty. When talking about stereotypes that go along with poverty, Hooks mentions …show more content…
Many examples are from the writer’s experience but, fully support her claims. Although Bell Hooks does have bias when it comes to this topic, her evidence is convincing. At first, Hooks mentions her personal experiences on being poor and how she found out about the way privileged people look at poor people. “They (college professors and peers) almost always portrayed the poor as shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy.” This quote is important because Hooks mentions that what she was taught in a culture of poverty is what lead her to get into Stanford University. She goes on about the culture in the United States and how it has only presented the poor in a negative light through the media. Since poverty is represented unfavorably, teenagers needs for material items don’t only come from want but, from the stigma of being poor. The disadvantaged students she taught also didn’t want to identify as poor and said the material possessions they owned were worth going into debt for, since self-esteem goes hand in hand with social class. The last thing Hooks talks about is how we can makes changes as a society to create new reputations for the poor and poverty in general. Hooks says that programs could be introduced to help teach the materially disadvantaged to develop skills on critical consciousness and reorganizing their lives to get out of their circumstances. Hooks states, “Constructively changing ways the poor are represented in every aspect of life is one progressive intervention that can challenge everyone to look at the face of poverty and not turn
In the article, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor,” Bell Hooks, discusses the issues of poverty. One of her claims is that America has negative attitudes and stereotypes towards poverty; she believes poverty is not something that should be looked down upon in society. Hooks has also observed the way these ideas have affected people’s views on poverty. She goes on about how poor people are degraded in media, the negative associations with poverty, and how people in poverty lives aren’t valued. Hooks uses the example of the movie Pretty Woman to show her audience how the underprivileged are shown to willingly demean themselves for material plenty. When talking about stereotypes that go along with poverty, Hooks mentions …show more content…
Many examples are from the writer’s experience but, fully support her claims. Although Bell Hooks does have bias when it comes to this topic, her evidence is convincing. At first, Hooks mentions her personal experiences on being poor and how she found out about the way privileged people look at poor people. “They (college professors and peers) almost always portrayed the poor as shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy.” This quote is important because Hooks mentions that what she was taught in a culture of poverty is what lead her to get into Stanford University. She goes on about the culture in the United States and how it has only presented the poor in a negative light through the media. Since poverty is represented unfavorably, teenagers needs for material items don’t only come from want but, from the stigma of being poor. The disadvantaged students she taught also didn’t want to identify as poor and said the material possessions they owned were worth going into debt for, since self-esteem goes hand in hand with social class. The last thing Hooks talks about is how we can makes changes as a society to create new reputations for the poor and poverty in general. Hooks says that programs could be introduced to help teach the materially disadvantaged to develop skills on critical consciousness and reorganizing their lives to get out of their circumstances. Hooks states, “Constructively changing ways the poor are represented in every aspect of life is one progressive intervention that can challenge everyone to look at the face of poverty and not turn