Monday, March 20, 2017
Differing opinions about poverty in America
Both the "Logic of Stupid Poor People" and "The Money", had their own ways of dealing with being poor. Both Junot Diaz and Tressie Mcmillan Cottom discuss an event from there past describing the way they grew up and how being poor affected their lives. In "The Money", Junot Diaz talked about the spare money his mother would keep saved up in order to send to his grandparents, and that this would make his family that much more poor. "Took me two days to return the money to my mother. Truth was I was seriously considering keeping it." In this passage the family is very poor little to no income and most of it is being sent away not being put to good use for the family. On the other hand in the case of Tressie Mcmillan Cottom's, "Logic of Stupid Poor People", She talked about being black and female in this country made it harder to be successful then if you were a white male. She talked about how her family was the poor family that spent the extra money for the designer clothes. " I do not know what my mother spent on her camel colored cape or knee high boots but I know that whatever she paid it returned in hard to measure dividends." So regardless of the high price the mother paid for her designer clothes it just helped her out that much more. The clothes gave them an appearance of not being dirt poor and that might've been the difference in getting the job or anything else that required a bit of class.
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In “The Money” Junot Diaz talks abut how his mother saved money in a drawer in the back. Some of his friends stole it and he eventually stole it back, and in giving it back to her she did not praise him or celebrate. I’m sure she was joyous inside to have the money back in her hands, but she did not express that to give her son any ideas of praising money, instead “she just looked at the money and then at me and went back to her bedroom and put it back in it’s place” (Diaz, p.912). The article “The Logic of Stupid Poor People”, by Tressie McMillan Cottom, views saving money in another way. The author writes about her mother’s way of making herself look “classy” or very presentable. She spent money on clothing and accessories that helped her appearance simply because that gave her a one-up on everyone else applying for that job or filing some paperwork. With a nice presentation people are more willing to help you because of a “complex set of structural and social interactions designed to limit access to status, wealth, and power” (Cottom, p.1013). She then explains the numerous accounts in which she has been given attention or accommodation due to her appearance. While these two stories differ in ways of saving and spending money, I’m sure both could agree that society makes it harder and harder for the poor to attain wealth. Many people don’t realize that the cycle only gets worse with “gatekeepers” and clueless, judgmental peers.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Logic of Stupid Poor People,” carrying the a stature as a successor then you will be treated like a successor. For example if I dress like a million bucks with a $1,000 suit $500 shoes and a $100 tie I will be treated like the successor. I portray is how I will be treated although I might make $30,000 a year. In the wild this tactic can be resembled as a form of camouflage that allows you to blend, being capable to interact within other social statuses. Sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it to get to what you want. Which I agree because people do judge on the first impression and the first impression is the most important interaction you will have with a person.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to people living in poverty the thought process carried to survive is not the value of money but the value of what money can provide. Which in “The Money” tells a story of how value money is to poor people that money doesn’t matter as long of their assessed needs are met with a roof over their head food on the table. It also elaborates on how people can get lost in the value of money believe the actual presents of money makes things better. Finally understanding the function of money can help people understand is that it’s not what you have but, it is what you can do with it what you have.
Tressie McMillan Cottom the author of "The Logic of Stupid Poor People," discusses the mentality of her family growing up. The mentality of spending money to make money is the key to success for the poor. Cottom says " Status symbols- silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags- become keys to unlocking gates (Cottom 1015). The gates being the gates of success. Status symbols are in investment in procuring ones future. Spending money to make money only works to a certain extent; recognizing the essentials is the wall for most. Junot Diaz the author of " The Money", recalls an incident in which the money his mother had been saving was stolen from his home. Diaz's mother would send money home to his grandparents further crippling his already poor family. His "friends" had broken in and taken it while the family was on vacation. Diaz's mother was furious about the money she had cheated her children out of. Diaz retrieved the money and returned it, after briefly contemplating keeping it. Diaz's mother took the money without any recognition of Diaz's efforts to please her, "I guess I was expecting my mother to run around in joy, to crown me her favorite son, to at least cook my favorite meal. Nada" (Diaz 915). His mother views the return as something that was her's. Diaz should have kept the money. Depriving Diaz and his siblings of well being is selfish. Realizing and taking advantage of an opportunity is another wall the poor face.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these works concern ideas of how poor people spend their money, but with fairly different outcomes. In my personal opinion, whether poor people use their money frugally and live on bare necessities or use it to appear more wealthy in order to become more wealthy is not for anyone but that person or family to decide. From the works it seems that their are benefits to both options. In “The Logic of Stupid Poor People,” the author explains the necessity to use expensive status symbols in order to appear more presentable in order to do better in society, like getting better jobs for example. The author gives an example, “Another hiring manager at my first professional job looked me up and down in the waiting room, cataloging my outfit, and later told me that she had decided I was too classy to be on the call center floor.” Because of an “unnecessary” purchase of clothing, the author was immediately given a better job with better benefits. On the other side, the author of “The Money,” had a family who did not spend money on status symbols but sent money out of country to his grandparents. “But my mother would rather have died than not send money back home to my grandparents in Santo Domingo.” Instead of status acheivement, this family places importance on providing for family members who can’t for themselves. As a result, the author’s family lived an even poorer lifestyle. “We alone among our friends never had juice, soda, snack in our apartment.” Different types of living are better for different families, depending on where they place the importance.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Money” the author refers back to a moment in his childhood where he got back the money stolen from his family. Within the next 2 days he returns the money to his mother, receiving the most non-appreciative response. It is ironic in the fact that she makes a big ordeal about the money, that when it is returned to her she says nothing. The author should have instead held onto the money and used it for his own gain. However, I believe either way he would have returned the money in some form. He states in the essay that “I’d never had that much money in my hand...”, which gives more reason on what exactly would he do with that money. In the end indecision, would have prevailed and return the money he would have done. In “ The Logic of Stupid Poor People”, the author talks about her various experiences in her poverty stricken life and the differences she made rather than the stupid poor people. One thing that I agree on is when she talks about is why do poor people make stupid decisions. She states “ We want to belong”, I agree with this because in essence it’s the very truth. We as humans naturally do not want to be the odd ones out . We don’t want to be seen as lower or different in a sense. This is why the poor make decisions such as buy expensive cars, clothes, or any material items that bring them closer to “belonging”. However they only further themselves from “belonging” by doing this.
ReplyDeleteIn both “The Logic of Stupid Poor People” by Tressie Cottom and “The Money” by Junot Diaz the authors discuss poverty and the effects that it has had on their lives. Tressie Cottom talks about the stereotypes associated with poor people buying expensive things, and how sometimes this is necessary for them to take advantage of opportunities in America. She states that most middle and upper class Americans believe that “[they] would know better” and “would never be like them” when it came to spending money if the roles were reversed and they were instead the ones stricken with poverty (Cottom 1015). Cottom’s main argument is that you can never fully understand someone’s situation from an outside perspective, and that there are often hurdles that poor people must jump over just to appear equal in society’s eyes. I agree with this perspective, having had to jump over many of these hurdles myself. In “The Money” by Junot Diaz, he thinks back on his early days as an impoverished Dominican immigrant and one instance in particular where his family was robbed by some of his “friends”. Diaz explains that when something like this happens “it’s easy to feel targeted. Like it wasn’t just a couple of assholes that had it in for you but the whole neighborhood – hell, maybe the whole country” (Diaz 913). It’s hard for me to relate to this as I never had to deal with the struggles of being an immigrant, however I empathize with his situation as it cannot have been easy to have both the weight of poverty and his immigrant status weighing down on him. Diaz talks about how when he found the money, it was difficult to give it back to his mother, and when he did he unexpectedly got little appreciation from her. I think this might have had to do with his mother’s anguish at her current situation, and her inability to feel appreciation for the returned money might have just been a result of the gradual degradation of her overall happiness. Or maybe she didn’t care as much about the physical money as she did the fact that it had been stolen, and the returned money did nothing to fill that void. I agree with both authors in the sense that life in poverty is difficult and there are often things that those who haven’t experienced this lifestyle could never understand. That being said, there are struggles related to being middle or upper class that poverty-stricken people might never understand either. Overall, I do not think one’s economic standing determines that persons worth or definitively limits their opportunity in any way, however it can certainly make things far more difficult.
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