Hey
Guys, I promise that this is the last blog post that you will ever have to read
for now… But I think it’s time to educate others on the important topic that is
at hand: poverty? Poverty as people know it means poor. Poor is correct, but it
goes more into depth than just “poor” Did you guys know that living in poverty
means limited access to resources that is needed to survive in the world? A
higher chance of getting diseases, such as obesity, heart attack, etc.? Because
of not having the resources that is needed to survive in the world, many people
lack ambition which Is needed if they wanted to become successful in this world.
WOW, poverty can do so much damage to society, so how much longer can poverty
do to society before society starts to be deteriorate? Let’s hope by the end of
this blog, you can educate others about it and fight to reduce poverty in the
world….
To
reduce poverty, we would have to understand what really causes poverty. In the
world, there are so much negative views about poverty that people would rather
make fun of those who live in poverty instead of helping them… Let’s look at these two memes that were being
said about poverty….
When
people look at these memes, all they would want to do is laugh and would not want
to help. Theses memes are not sociological because theses memes are going based
off what they are seeing in the media. For starters, it’s not only African Americans
going through poverty, its other ethnicities as well. Second, African Americans
are not “stupid”. African Americans have the same knowledge as Whites, but
nobody’s going to say anything about it, because they do not see blacks and
whites equal. Think about it for a moment, when do you ever see blacks and
whites ever being
equal? Of course, they would discourage and talk bad about black people because people see black people as “unfit” to do anything in the world. Make sense??? Now let’s move on to the second meme with Paris Hilton… With this meme, the only question that I want to ask and hope you would want to ask as well, HOW CAN POOR PEOPLE JUST BUY MORE MONEY IF THEY NEVER HAD MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE?? I think when that question gets answered, then this meme would make sense. It’s not sociological at all because they would know that people living in poverty barely has the funds to survive in the world and barely has food to eat, so how can they get more money unless they commit illegal crimes? and what would be the purpose of doing that, so they can continue to get talked down badly?? Now, it’s important to have an informed sociological perspective in everything that we do to educate others on topics. If we don’t have sociological perspectives on things, then we would be completely biased in everything that we see around us. And what good would biasness do for the world? Wouldn’t we just rather the truth and facts instead of false information and opinions? I would rather have the facts than opinions.
equal? Of course, they would discourage and talk bad about black people because people see black people as “unfit” to do anything in the world. Make sense??? Now let’s move on to the second meme with Paris Hilton… With this meme, the only question that I want to ask and hope you would want to ask as well, HOW CAN POOR PEOPLE JUST BUY MORE MONEY IF THEY NEVER HAD MORE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE?? I think when that question gets answered, then this meme would make sense. It’s not sociological at all because they would know that people living in poverty barely has the funds to survive in the world and barely has food to eat, so how can they get more money unless they commit illegal crimes? and what would be the purpose of doing that, so they can continue to get talked down badly?? Now, it’s important to have an informed sociological perspective in everything that we do to educate others on topics. If we don’t have sociological perspectives on things, then we would be completely biased in everything that we see around us. And what good would biasness do for the world? Wouldn’t we just rather the truth and facts instead of false information and opinions? I would rather have the facts than opinions.
This
semester, I have learned a great deal about poverty while learning about poverty.
I realized that there is a lot of research being done on poverty and not a lot of
people realize that there’s research. If people could listen and go on the
internet and read the biasness about poverty, then they could read the research
that is being done on poverty; all of which is facts by the way… I’ve learned that poverty is caused by a person
barely surviving because of their income. I know people’s first reaction would
be “they should just look for a job that will pay them more” but people should
realize that’s not always the case… One
of the people who helps understand this is Yoshikawa, Lawrence Aber, and Beardslee.
With this, these people decide to look at previous models of other researcher’s
research about poverty and how it connects to income. Yoshikawa, et. Al (2012)
states “First, underemployment or job loss limits families’ economic resources
and, hence, their ability to purchase resources and goods, schools, food,
housing, and safe environments necessary for development” (275) By this
statement, they are saying that when there are barely any jobs or when jobs
ended up closing due to economic loss, people barely have any income that is
needed to buy things to survive. In the United States, there are barely jobs and
with the jobs that are available, not everyone has the certain skills that is
needed for the job. So, either, one has the skills that is needed for the job
or they will become unemployed. Which would make sense as to why there are less
people having jobs because they don’t have the skills for that job. And the
reason why they do not have the skills is because of the upbringing that they
were brought into and the certain neighborhoods must come with the parents can
afford, which relates back to poverty…. Wow, as I was reading this research, I said
“It makes sense as to why there are so many people in the United States unemployed”
The next thing that I have learned is neighborhood factors relating to poverty.
The person to help me understand this view was Jefferey Timberlake. Jefferey
Timberlake used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics which had surveyed
families about their economic well-being. Timberlake, 2009 wrote “... household
and especially urban ecological factors strongly affect the amount of time that
black and white children can expect to spend in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods
throughout childhood” (469). White children would hardly live in a low-income
neighborhood because their parents don’t want them to be exposed to that
specific type of upbringing, whereas black children have no choice but to stay
in the low-income neighborhood because the parents could afford the houses
within that neighborhood. What people don’t realize is depending on where one
grew up, it has a huge influence on them. The last point that I learned while
reading this research is there is a decline in a person’s life expectancy rate due
to poverty. Simone Rambotti used data collected from the Equality Trust website
which was conducted by Wilkson and Pickett to find the correlation between
income inequality and life expectancy rate. Rambotti (2015) states “inequality
negatively affects life expectancy only in high-poverty countries, and does not
affect it in low-poverty countries” (129). Countries that have the most income
and doesn’t have people homeless or underemployed typically has a longer chance
of life expectancy because those countries have the resources that are
available to them for them to be healthy. These resources include many
supermarkets for people to buy groceries and less fast food restaurants or
faster emergency rooms and better hospitals that can fix the health problems.
Countries that has the least income are bound to have a lower life expectancy
rate because there are little to no resources available and the rate for
unemployment is extremely high. Did you guys know that United States has the
highest rate of poverty? How can that be if we have “money”?? So where is our
money going to?? Just let that sink in for a minute….
The
point that I am trying to make hence for the long research post is… poverty is
damaging our society. Of course, we can not control unfortunate situations but
as a country, we are not doing anything to reduce the problem at hand. How many
more people can we lose due to poverty? I am not saying that there’s a permanent
way of deleting poverty, because as much as we would like for that to happen,
it just can’t. But what I am saying is, there should be more jobs opening for those
who doesn’t have a job, for people to learn certain skills that is needed for
jobs, for better hospitals and better resources. I want you to think about the families
who barely has any food, money to eat, a home due to poverty. So, the next time
you see a person talking about people living in poverty or make horrible memes,
refer them to this blog because I have learned a great deal by researching this
topic and I know they will too by reading this blog.
Sincerely,
-
Anikka
References
for the research that I have cited
Rambotti,
Simone. 2015. "Recalibrating the spirit level: An analysis of
the interaction of income inequality and poverty and its effect on health"
Social Science and Medicine. Retrieved October
13, 2017(https://ac-els-cdn-com.webproxy.potsdam.edu/S0277953615001094/1-s2.0-S0277953615001094-main.pdf?_tid=b030185e-b2e9-11e7-8ea9-00000aab0f6c&acdnat=1508210421_b0df6247b24407a6ba55a752a9768fec)
Timberlake, Jeffery M. 2009. "Effects of
household and neighborhood characteristics on children’s exposure to
neighborhood poverty and affluence" Social Science Research. Retrieved
October 14, 2017 (https://ac-els-cdn-com.webproxy.potsdam.edu/S0049089X09000040/1-s2.0-S0049089X09000040-main.pdf?_tid=d1d21546-b2f0-11e7-b6f7-00000aab0f27&acdnat=1508213484_12d3c875677cfe54b393e274aec168b1
Yoshikawa, Hirokazu, Lawrence- Aber, J and
Beardslee, William R. 2012. "The
Effects of Poverty on the Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health of Children
and Youth Implications for Prevention" American Psychologist Association.
Retrieved October 13,
2017(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William_Beardslee/publication/224956205_The_Effects_of_Poverty_on_the_Mental_Emotional_and_Behavioral_Health_of_Children_and_Youth_Implications_for_Prevention/links/00463527aa2b4851e3000000.pdf)
