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Runner Head: Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor Calhoun Community College
Piner 4 Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor Rhetorical Analysis of Seeing and Making Culture: Representing The Poor Gloria Watkins, also known as Bell Hooks, wrote an article named " Seeing and Making Culture: representing the poor". The article explains how people in poverty face the stigma of being poor and what people are taught about poverty in schools. She explains how the people in poverty are seen as lazy and not willing to work for anything, which is clearly not the case at all. She writes to bring awareness that the upper class privileged do not have a good understanding of how the lower class has a better understanding of how important hard work is. People who in poverty understand hard work and might even be more intelligent than someone with a four year degree. Bell Hooks has many books to discuss cultural and racial problems. She is also credited for her collaboration with academic scholars (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 486). She can easily speak on this topic and have a valid understanding as to why a person in poverty because she was once in that situation. The article explains she had to get scholarships to pay for her college but she did not have enough money to go back home when she needed to (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 488). Because she came from a poor family and built her way up, she has seen the cultural views on how the rich view the poor and vice versa. She can understand why people are afraid of being open about being poor. She also knows firsthand that working hard does pay off and you need to sacrifice more when you are poor to get to where you need to be. She finds that hard work might not bring financial success. "One could be hardworking and still be poor" (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 488). They are not above doing the lower-end jobs, they have more appreciation for work and the knowledge they gain from the job. In this article, it has been mentioned a few times that there is a lot of negative stigma around being in poverty/working class. Of course, no one wants to admit to being in poverty
Piner 5 Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor because they will be seen as lazy and worthless, creating low self-esteem (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 488,489). People who are in poverty are the complete opposite of lazy, they are the ones who fill in the lower class jobs that are needed for a society to function. If someone is in poverty, they might not have literacy. Hooks tries to push for more ways to help these people by mentioning ways to provide basic reading and writing skills to people in need. These people do rely on low in routine jobs because they do not have the knowledge to move up. "It would be exciting to see unemployed folks who lack reading and writing skills have available to them community-based literacy programs" (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 492). This kind of learning is helpful for people who were not privileged enough to get proper education because they had to work or parents could not provide proper school equipment. This article is important because it does bring awareness to destigmatize poverty and allow for a better understanding of why a person might be in poverty. It brings into light some of the positives of being in poverty such as appreciation and integrity. There is more to being wealthy than material. In this article, it is expressed that people who are in poverty will save up to buy an item or two to sort of hiding from the fact they might be in poverty. People will use their last bit of savings or even go in debt to buy the next popular item to showcase. "In their apartments they have the material possessions that indicate success (aVCR, a colored television), even if it means they go without necessities and plunge into debt to by these items" (Hooks, 1994/2018, p. 490). Again people will put themselves in this situation because they do not want to be seen as broke because they simply do not want to face the embarrassment. Material is what proves a person is wealthy in today's society. People who are poor see wealthy people as being defined by the things they own. Having worth is more than owning a lavish item. It is about knowing the value of work and dignity.
Piner 6 Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor The article expresses how a person may fear being labeled as poor because of the negative stigma around poverty. Bells addresses how people are taught these negative stereotypes within schools. Education does not define one's self-worth, it is simply based upon a person's will to work. Many people will do anything in their power to gain a material item in to avoid the same faced by their insecurities of being poor. People in poverty come from poverty and are seen as lazy and unworthy. Bells tries to inform that this is not the case because she has seen first hand what it is like to live in poverty.
Piner 7 Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor References Hooks, Bell. (1994/2018). Seeing and Making Culture: Representing The Poor. In S. Greene & A. Lindinsky (Eds.), From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader (4 th ed.) (pp.486 - 493) New York: Beford?St. Martin's
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