James’ stepfather loved his house in Brooklyn and had spent a great deal of time renovating it. In 1969, the city bought the house from him. They gave him $13,000 and he left. The city knocked down the house, planning to build low-income-housing there. The housing was never built though, the empty lot going to waste.…
With the help of a family member, Jackie’s mom was able to buy them a house in an all-white neighborhood in Pasadena, California. His mother worked as a house cleaner to support the children, but they stayed poor. Jackie…
The whites thought having African-Americans in their neighborhood would ruin their standards. Having one black family in their neighborhood would bring them down to colored’s level. It was not only Sweet’s neighbors that were upset by the news of an African-American family moving in; the marketplace would be affected greatly because real agents would start steering white customers elsewhere, banks would downgrade home values, some of the neighbors would try to sell as quickly as they could, and the downward spiral would begin, housing prices tumbling, family budgets crumbling, disaster looming” (147). The reaction of whites was ridiculously chaotic all due to one civil black family joining other…
Abraham in Mama Might Be Better Off Dead humanizes the inequalities in quality and health care access that exists between the rich and the poor, through the stories of the Banes family, Mrs. Jackson, and Tommy. Abraham exposes the flaws in our healthcare system; through the experiences of one Chicago family we can see that it all comes down to money equals health. With that in mind, the book paints a ground up picture of how the health care fails to take care of those in most need. Abraham’s central message is “Not only do the poor get sicker but the sicker get poor” (39). With the statement above, Abraham is talking about the vicious cycle that the poor have to live with.…
All of the characters in A Raisin in the Sun face many challenges throughout the play. The dreams of the characters are torn down by each other and the outsiders in the book. The hopes and dreams the characters have are brought down by both the prejudices seen in the play and also the dreams of the other characters. The dreams of others in the book can often tear down another character’s dreams. Education, gender discrimination, and housing was greatly affected by growing up and living in the Southside of Chicago in the 1950’s and impacts the dreams of Beneatha, Ruth, and Mama in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun.…
QHQ #2: Individual Liability Contrary to popular belief, poor access to health care is not the central problem to the health of an individual in poverty; rather, health is associated with certain social determinants of health, specifically individual risk factors. In the book Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America by Laurie Kaye Abraham, the concept of how an individual’s decisions can drastically impact their health is clearly expressed through the lens of Tommy, an uneducated individual who does not follow the advice given by his physician. The choices that Tommy makes in respect to his health outside the four walls of the hospital are what contributes to his declining health. There are two primary individual…
Walker is determined to become very wealthy and he will “have nothing less than the complete American dream” (Washington 114). He wants to use his father’s insurance money to open a liquor store. He thinks that becoming wealthy will give him some sort of escape from his daily routine in his life. This causes many problems between Mama, Beneatha, and his wife, Ruth. Far from being a great listener, Walter does not realize he must listen to his family’s concerns to help them out with their problems.…
A Raisin In The Sun Ending At the end of the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, the family is getting ready to move into their new home. Although the family just lost all of their money, this is a happy ending to the story. Walter is the most upset about losing the money and he is also the reasoning behind it, but it’s his decision to move into the house instead of sell it to Mr. Lindner.…
Summary ‘Mama Might Be Better Off Dead’ book highlights the intrigues of Jackie Banks and her family in a bid to maintain good health. In this case, Banks’ granny’s leg is already amputated. The amputation was occasioned by diabetes. The family realizes that the granny’s situation could have been different had she been treated in advance. The problem is now exacerbated by the remaining led getting bad.…
Leana’s American Dream was to buy a house for her and her family. She was going to achieve this dream by getting the check from the insurance agency for her husband’s death. Her dream was deferred because people have said that it would bring enormous problems in the neighborhood that they looking at. “I’m sure you people must be aware of some of the incidents which have happened in various parts of the city when colored people have moved in certain areas”(115). Mama doesn’t care if it will produce a problem between her family and the whites the important thing is to get her family out of that apartment they are living in right now.…
One big part of this whole plot is that Mama has to stay asleep. If she were to wake up, she could ruin their plan. After every “accident” they say “Sh-h-h! Don’t wake up Mama!”. At that point they go check on Mama, then say.…
Part of her dream of being a doctor includes being an independent woman which means not living off of a significant other’s money. Mama also planned to use some of the check to invest in her own desires. Mama’s dream is the same as it was when Walter senior was alive and they were a young couple, to own a house with a garden, however Mr.Linder from the Clybourne Park Welcoming Committee 's dream conflicts with her’s. Linder tries to explain the dream of the people in Clybourne Park by saying, “..our community is made up of people who 've worked hard as the dickens for years to build up that little community...who don 't really have much but those little homes and a dream of the kind of community they want to raise their children in..our association is prepared to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family” (553-554 Hansberry). Mr.Linder is willing to pay the Younger family to not move into the house in clybourne park.…
African Americans are discriminated against for housing issues even with all of the improvements and advances in social society. Lindner arrives at the apartment and unsuccessfully tries to persuade the family to not move into his all-white neighborhood, “At the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background. I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn 't enter into it” (Hansberry 553). Lindner is discriminating the Younger family based solely on their race; he does not even know the family and he is rudely requesting them to not move in.…
Ruth wants to be anywhere but where she is. And the mama wants a new home. All of these dreams seem reasonable but aren 't achievable because of their financial standing. This all changes once the family learns about the $10,000 insurance check that is coming to the mama. Each one of the family members get super anxious and excited about thinking how the money will benefit them.…
This was not out of the ordinary for African-American families living in the 1950’s. The family had a small apartment with only a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a small window. Poverty percentiles have not changed much from the 1950’s until 2010, only dropping from 34.1% to 29.7% respectively (Bulgaria, 2013). “For a family of three, extreme poverty means surviving on about $9,500 or less for the entire year” (Cottrell, 2013, para. 9). This may be the reason why the Younger family gets very thrilled over the fact that Mama gets a $10,000 check from her husband’s insurance (Hansberry, 1966).…