What's Killing Poor White Women Analysis

Monica Potts attempts to answer the question “what kills poor white women?”, in her essay “What’s Killing Poor White Women?”, Potts uses studies on this topic, her own research, and her own opinion to try to answer this relatively new question. Potts uses a woman’s life that fits the criteria as a poor southern white woman as the basis of her essay. The essay is full of facts that I agree with but there are some points in her writing that I do not agree with, and think are rather stereotypical. In “What’s Killing Poor White Women?”, Monica Potts is sharing what she thinks is killing poor white women by examining a woman’s life that fits the criteria for her research. Crystal Wilson is the woman Potts chose to base this essay on because Crystal …show more content…
In writing this essay, Potts is trying to reach out not only to young women in rural areas in school, but to any young women in school in any part of the United States to tell them that their future health depends on their education. Potts tells the story in a way that will make the audience feel bad for Crystal but also learn from her mistakes. She uses facts from research that she has examined to show the audience that education is a major factor in the deaths of poor white women. The use of facts and research helps the audience learn from the mistakes that Crystal made on a learning basis. Crystals life story made the audience feel for Crystal, the reason that the story was in the essay was to back up Potts’ research so that the audience can see in their minds what the research was relating …show more content…
Potts states that “Surely these forces weigh on black women, too, but perhaps they are more likely to have stronger networks of other women.” (Potts, Page #603) This statement is ignorant; how could she know that black women have stronger support from other women than white women? It seems like Potts is just making this up so she can have another point in her essay that would be a contributing factor to her question. She does this again with stereotypes that people have about the south and poor communities in the south such as “Meth and alcohol kill quickly. It could be that white women, as a group, are better at killing themselves.” (Potts, Page #603) Potts is making assumptions without thinking or doing any research, she is just making stuff up at these points in her essay. Other than the mistakes that Potts made, she did a very good job of writing her essay on why poor white women are dying so young. Her story about Crystal Wilsons life along with the facts and research she did made the audience both feel sorrowful and learn from Crystal. Potts was able to confidently answer her question of “what is killing poor white women?”, and that is lack of