Seeing And Making Culture Representing The Poor Essay

Have you ever been stereotyped negatively or in a way that wasn’t true at all? Have you ever been the one to stereotype a stranger based on their appearance and what you think you might know about them? Every single one of us stereotypes daily and we may not even realize that we are doing it. When we make a stereotype about someone, we don’t realize what this judgement will do to their expectations of themselves but we also don’t realize that stereotyping can put us at ease when it comes to the strangers around us. We could be making a complete false judgement on someone based off their appearance. A lot of stereotypes come from making judgements on the poor, working, and middle classes. There are pros and cons of stereotypes and the ways that we live up to them. Stereotypes can have a negative outcome on someone’s life, but they can help us in …show more content…
In Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor by bell hooks, she talks about how the poor are represented. Throughout this passage she talks about the many stereotypes of “poor people”. Some of these stereotypes include the poor being lazy and not liking to work. In paragraph one she recalls an experience when she was speaking to Cornel West about being poor. He corrected her by saying she was not “poor” and that she was a part of the “working class” because her father worked. She told him that even though her father was working; she and her family of 7 still felt that they were poor because of all of their hardships they had even though they were a part of the “working class”. On page 483 paragraph 1, bell hooks talks about the working classes she was aware of. She says, “We acknowledged the existence of four groups: the poor, who were destitute; the working folks, who were poor because they made just enough to make ends meet; those who worked and had extra money; and the