Hassan Aslam
Sociology 101
11/01/14
Camden Chronicles: Children in Urban Poverty In the video, Camden Chronicles: Children in Urban Poverty, the sociological issue of struggles faces by people living in poverty is depicted very powerfully. The video focuses on the city of Camden, New Jersey. Camden is one of the poorest cities in the whole country and the people living there find themselves surrounded by crime and murder and drug wars. Innocent kids grow up not playing with toys or running around in parks but struggling to find meals and shelter. The video showed the lives of 3 kids living in the poverty-stricken region. It was extremely sad how these kids were forced to grow up in poverty while ten minutes away, there is kids living in nice
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The video showed a lot of people getting arrested in the streets all over Camden and a lot of the people getting arrested were from the surrounding areas of Camden who had come to buy drugs. This, of course, has a lot of influence on the perception of the poor area. Families whose kids have been arrested in the area will look down upon the area as a bad influence and make judgments about the whole population there. This would probably make them fear the poor neighborhood rather than feeling bad and helping out. However, people who are not directly affected by the poor neighborhood do feel bad as it was shown by the interviews with the kids from the suburbs. They all said that they felt bad that the kids in the poor city had to grow up the way they do. I think that is a good thing because when these kids grow up, they’ll try to help the people in the poor city. More awareness like that is exactly what is needed to help tackle the poverty situation because even though some people from the suburbs have set up organizations to help the inner city kids, they all said they are trying to help but they’re not enough to help the 20,000 kids living in poverty. They need more help and when people in the suburbs start to be more aware, it will help make the situation …show more content…
Conflict theory says that inequality exists because there are limited resources and the powerful control the resources. In this case, people who are stuck in poverty find it very difficult if not impossible to climb out of poverty. Most of the people in the area used to work in factories but all those factories moved overseas to save on labor costs leaving thousands behind unemployed and no where to go. People lost their homes and means of earning a living. Federal welfare programs provide for these people but those programs are simply not enough as it was shown in the video. The families still went hungry and had to starve themselves to save food to get by for a month. And, if the family income goes up a little bit, the benefits are reduced and the situation actually worsens for families instead of getting better. This cycle keeps poor families poor for the fear of losing benefits. The government is the powerful entity in this case that controls the limited resources and allocates them to the poor as much as it has decided is necessary. Poor families lack the access to good education for their kids and kids have a hard time in school with all the distractions and the crime that surrounds them. A lot of people who are critics of the welfare programs argue that people are poor because they are lazy and they live off government handouts but that is not the truth at all. As we can see from the video, most of the
According to Statistics Canada (2016), 11% of the population aged 5 to 24 in Canada lived in low-income circumstances. The socioeconomic status of a developing child has a large impact on several aspects of their childhood and success. A child in a family with a lower socioeconomic status will have a reduced likelihood of success in academic achievement, have poor physical and mental health, and will be more prone to live in low-income circumstances in the future. Using a Market Based Measure, also referred to as MBM, can assess a person’s socioeconomic status. The MBM the estimated cost of purchasing a “basket” of goods and services estimated to represent the average of consumption.
some kids parents have donkeys and when they go and get water they use the donkey and they can carry more water to take home and other kids parents do not have enough money to buy a donkey so when the kids go to get water they bring less home afterwards and have to make more trips to the tap. The video also discusses how many people and perspectives that there are that actually work every day and all day. These people are mostly children and they work until they drop. Literally they drop, in the video it talked about how a little boy named merawaz had broken his arm this is ne of the many perspectives that the video
In 2015, 13.6% of Illinois residents lived below the poverty line, that is 1,703,258 people. Poverty is a growing epidemic that plagues more people than you would think. In three articles by Dick Gregory, Stephen Pimpare, and Randall Williams, the theme of poverty is discussed and dissected. We learn the stories of people living in poverty and how they feel about their situations. People living in poverty should not feel ashamed of their situation because many times, it is not their fault and they didn’t have a choice in the matter.
In Kozol’s “Poverty’s Children,” he talks about one of the poorest communities in America, Mott Haven which is located in the South Bronx. Throughout his article, he brings up issues that the community has to face. The issues range from homelessness, disease, drugs, and gang related violence, and environmental issues. Each political philosophy that I learned about will view these problems in different ways. Six philosophies that I will use to explain the situation will be utilitarianism, libertarianism, liberal contractarianism, communitarianism, moral conservatism, and deliberative democracy.
She understands poverty as a concern for both the deprived and the privileged. To illustrate, Jade Walker expresses that “the number of homeless children in the U.S. has surged in recent years to an all-time high because of the nation’s high poverty rate, the lake of affordable housing, and the impacts of pervasive domestic violence,” (Walker 1 of 5). Therefore, this is concerning many people because poverty can cause violence which is fighting because the poverty rate is at its
In preparation for this paper I chose to read Fire in the ashes: twenty five years among the poorest children in America by Jonathan Kozol. In this book Kozol has followed these children and their family’s lives for the past twenty five years. In his writing Kozol portrays a point of view most from his background and standing would not be capable of having. He portrays what life is like for those who have been let down by the system that was meant to protect them. Kozols writing style can be very blunt at times, not for shock value, but for the sake of portraying these children’s realities, and not sugarcoating the inequalities that they are faced with.
Final Statement When I came to UOP, I did not know that Stockton is a bankrupt city. Then, I was surprised that how this city is different with other cities. Therefore, I decided to take downtown Stockton view and show how the difference between upper class and poverty. I think the theme is poverty is pretty perfect for Stockton’s view.
A hardship that many people have to endure is poverty. The characters in the short stories, Angela’s Ashes, by Frank Mccourt and The Street, by Ann Petry, both experience living in impoverished conditions. In the story The Street, Petry shows the life of a single mother who lives through the struggles of being poor. In another story portraying poverty, Angela’s Ashes, the author uses kids to paint the image of indigence. These kids are burdened with the task of caring for themselves.
The frontline documentary: Poor Kids was very enlightening and heartrending. I recommend that anyone and everyone watch the documentary. Everyday there are numerous of families that get dumped into poverty. In addition to this, I have had the opportunity to witness that there are so many children that are facing the hardships of poverty right now. Every fourth Tuesday of the month I go with my church to the Long Beach Rescue Mission and we volunteer to serve food to the homeless.
In “Millions in U.S. Climb Out of Poverty, at Long Last”, the author Patricia Cohen effectively achieves her purpose of informing readers of The New York Times about the recent decreasing poverty rate in America and somewhat motivating people currently in poverty to climb over the poverty line. She effectively supports her thoughts with logos and examples of success stories from people who rose out of poverty. Cohen begins her article with a brief success story about Alex Caicedo, who overcame poverty, and continues to introduce the main idea of her article by informing her audience about the decreasing poverty rate. Cohen continues to support the idea of the decrease in poverty by presenting statistics and facts about the situation.
I viewed Frontline a documentary series, which episode was entitled Poor Kids. The frontline personnel spent time with three children Kailey, Johnny, and Britany along with their families as they all struggle financially. We perceive a glimpse of what it is like to live below the poverty line in America through a child’s eyes. While observing the documentary, I became consciously aware that children who are considered poor or living below the poverty line were more mindful of the responsibilities of life. The children were worrisome of the lack of employment for their parents, bills, and in Britney’s case; how they would accommodate their way of living to support a new addition to the family.
They allow the audience to form their own opinions on the story where they focus on the kids. In addition, they provide the statistical facts regarding to the severity of poverty. Lastly, they ended with a director’s note, these life experiences greatly impact the children’s futures; whether positive or negative outcomes, we do not know. This documentary pulled heart strings, I feel for these children. How can you not, at their young age they have already experienced hardship.
This movie takes place in South Central Los Angeles California where a crippling neighborhood sits just next to some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in California. It is in this documentary that they study how such a poor community can exist and how crime has riddle the streets to stay a community. The beginning of the movie talks about its once thriving area. There was this informal social control in which people could connect with one another. At one-point communities thrived on big businesses like Firestone and Chrysler but when these companies shut down and moved elsewhere these people with blue collar jobs could no longer get an education and were left with no opportunity to succeed.
According to the PBS Frontline video “Poor Kids” 2012, more than 46 million Americans are living beneath the poverty line. The United States alone has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialized world. It is stated that 1 out of 5 children are living in poverty. The video documented the lives of three families who are faced with extreme hardships and are battling to survive a life of being poor. All three families have more than one child and could barely afford to pay their bills and purchase food for their household.
Generational Poverty Poverty has been around for numerous years. Poverty can be a generational problem if people let it. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and David Joy’s “Digging in the trash” both show that families in poverty do not have it easy, the children will live in poverty unless something is done, and people either find a way of escape or stand up against it. In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues” Baldwin shows how the lack of monetary resources affects many generations.