The United States has been viewed as the beacon of opportunity since it’s independence in 1776. Families and individuals have travelled from all over the world in order to start a new and better life in the States, and to have a better standard of living for themselves and their children. Historically, this is true, and has even been carried out to today. On the other hand, statistics of the standard of living and the career possibilities for those who are identified as the minority in the U.S show that they rarely get justified nor fair treatment by the government, in the workplace, or in society; their standard of living is lower and their possibilities are limited in comparison to their white neighbors. Acknowledging that, economic discrimination
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This is seen through the slaveholders pre-civil war, the civil rights movement, and the more recent internment of Japanese Americans post WWII, where cultures of color were living lives in a way that the white community wouldn’t have had the notion of living. Elaine Kim, an award winning writer and professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California introduces the topic of historical discrimination within her article by stating “In a society held together by hierarchical arrangements of power and the privileging of competitive individualism, it is difficult for groups of color to deal with each other on an equal basis, without falling into competition, ranking, and scrambling around hierarchies of oppression.” Her quote rings true when examining multiple parts of American history; due to a country, like many others, that’s built on a social hierarchy based on color of the skin and the money that person has, society is then turned into a competition of who can be succesful versus who is …show more content…
One very disputed topic today is that the population in poverty, who happen to be mostly comprised of people of color, aren’t higher in the socioeconomical hierarchy because they lack the will of seeking a higher standard of living. In a sense, these critics can be somewhat correct; whether it is the media or statistics on poverty that changes the perspective of those with color, what exactly thier economical possibilities are, this can hinder thier driving-force of reaching a higher standard of living for when they’re grown. However, this narrow definition of ‘culture of poverty’ only defines the individual’s will of succeedeing, it merely hints that all the individuals who are in poverty, are incompetant and are ‘lazy’, and that they are more than content with living off wellfare. This narrow definition of the ‘Culture of Poverty’ appeals to many of those who refute the fact of discrimination and unequal oppertunity that the U.S Economy has. Samual Cohns, Harvard Graduate and award winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities , redifines the ‘Culture of Poverty’ with broader aspects in his statement; “The culture of poverty hypothesis argues that the demoralizing effects of long-term poverty, combined for blacks with the historically destructive effects of slavery, have created a black underclass that has experienced few realistic prospects for
This is seen through the slaveholders pre-civil war, the civil rights movement, and the more recent internment of Japanese Americans post WWII, where cultures of color were living lives in a way that the white community wouldn’t have had the notion of living. Elaine Kim, an award winning writer and professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California introduces the topic of historical discrimination within her article by stating “In a society held together by hierarchical arrangements of power and the privileging of competitive individualism, it is difficult for groups of color to deal with each other on an equal basis, without falling into competition, ranking, and scrambling around hierarchies of oppression.” Her quote rings true when examining multiple parts of American history; due to a country, like many others, that’s built on a social hierarchy based on color of the skin and the money that person has, society is then turned into a competition of who can be succesful versus who is …show more content…
One very disputed topic today is that the population in poverty, who happen to be mostly comprised of people of color, aren’t higher in the socioeconomical hierarchy because they lack the will of seeking a higher standard of living. In a sense, these critics can be somewhat correct; whether it is the media or statistics on poverty that changes the perspective of those with color, what exactly thier economical possibilities are, this can hinder thier driving-force of reaching a higher standard of living for when they’re grown. However, this narrow definition of ‘culture of poverty’ only defines the individual’s will of succeedeing, it merely hints that all the individuals who are in poverty, are incompetant and are ‘lazy’, and that they are more than content with living off wellfare. This narrow definition of the ‘Culture of Poverty’ appeals to many of those who refute the fact of discrimination and unequal oppertunity that the U.S Economy has. Samual Cohns, Harvard Graduate and award winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities , redifines the ‘Culture of Poverty’ with broader aspects in his statement; “The culture of poverty hypothesis argues that the demoralizing effects of long-term poverty, combined for blacks with the historically destructive effects of slavery, have created a black underclass that has experienced few realistic prospects for