My background as a child shaped my views of poverty. I grew up in the west, in a middle class family of Irish descent. As a child I attended Catholic schools. My parents were very involved in the church and my mother was a great fan of Dorothy Day. My earliest memories were of helping with relief efforts through the church. My view of poverty was shaped and forged by my Catholic upbringing. The Church teaches a preferential option for the poor, that we should help the poor. (usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings, 2014) In addition to this, the Church requires a vow of poverty for the clergy; the people that we looked up to, the nuns and the priests, had all taken a vow of poverty. Poverty could be noble, living simply so that others might
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I was taught that it is the duty of those who have more to share it with other people. My family firmly believed that poverty was an evil in the world that we could end. I was taught that education will help lift you out of poverty and giving a hand out was nice, but a hand up worked better. My Dad was fond of quoting the saying, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime’.
I believed that we as a nation could end poverty if we would work together to help others who were less fortunate. I never thought poverty had a correlation with race or gender; I viewed it as what happens in a selfish and sinful world.
My parents were very involved with politics. My dad worked on John F. Kennedy’s campaign. Social justice was something that my parents discussed at the dinner table with us children. My dad could not tolerate injustice. He got almost got fired when I was 12 for refusing to fire a manager who worked for him because he was gay in 1970. He repeatedly told us that to discriminate against people based on race, religion or personal behavior is worse than murder. If a man does his job, then that is what he should be judged on. I was raised on social justice ideas and still believe them to be true. People have a right to be, and we do not have the right to judge them by anything but their …show more content…
I believe that poverty is a social evil that can be ended if we would simply take care of people. Race and ethnicity isn’t something that I think about that much. My family has many inter-racial marriages and members and I have grown up finding all of this diversity normal. I do recognize that being a racial or ethnic minority in America will put you at a disadvantage in schools, neighborhoods you live in and jobs that you can get. I have seen racism and how it has hurt my family members. I have also benefited by being a member of the white privileged class. I believe it is intolerable that we allow racism to continue.
I thought it was slowly changing, until the latest immigration crisis, when we have been treated to white faces filled with hate screaming at children trying to have a better life. Those pictures remind me of the same faces that screamed hate at 5 year old Ruby Bridges as she went to school in New Orleans. It is ugly and vicious to hate someone for trying to
I was taught that it is the duty of those who have more to share it with other people. My family firmly believed that poverty was an evil in the world that we could end. I was taught that education will help lift you out of poverty and giving a hand out was nice, but a hand up worked better. My Dad was fond of quoting the saying, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime’.
I believed that we as a nation could end poverty if we would work together to help others who were less fortunate. I never thought poverty had a correlation with race or gender; I viewed it as what happens in a selfish and sinful world.
My parents were very involved with politics. My dad worked on John F. Kennedy’s campaign. Social justice was something that my parents discussed at the dinner table with us children. My dad could not tolerate injustice. He got almost got fired when I was 12 for refusing to fire a manager who worked for him because he was gay in 1970. He repeatedly told us that to discriminate against people based on race, religion or personal behavior is worse than murder. If a man does his job, then that is what he should be judged on. I was raised on social justice ideas and still believe them to be true. People have a right to be, and we do not have the right to judge them by anything but their …show more content…
I believe that poverty is a social evil that can be ended if we would simply take care of people. Race and ethnicity isn’t something that I think about that much. My family has many inter-racial marriages and members and I have grown up finding all of this diversity normal. I do recognize that being a racial or ethnic minority in America will put you at a disadvantage in schools, neighborhoods you live in and jobs that you can get. I have seen racism and how it has hurt my family members. I have also benefited by being a member of the white privileged class. I believe it is intolerable that we allow racism to continue.
I thought it was slowly changing, until the latest immigration crisis, when we have been treated to white faces filled with hate screaming at children trying to have a better life. Those pictures remind me of the same faces that screamed hate at 5 year old Ruby Bridges as she went to school in New Orleans. It is ugly and vicious to hate someone for trying to