As I was reading the Katz piece, the idea of how the poor became poor changed. When the Philadelphia Guardians said that those dependent on charity and public assistance were synonymous to the “undeserving poor,” I really thought these people had no minds. To me, it is so clear that some people simply couldn’t go up the social ladder because of their background. It is not necessarily their fault that they became dependent on it. Because of how they are dressed and the areas they live in, they were not given the opportunities to improve their lives as much as others. I don’t know who the Philadelphia Guardians are but I can’t help but think if they are educated people or not.
I was very surprised to read that racism was not the reason association with poverty was with black people. I did not know that it was actually the massive immigration of Africans after World War II were the cause. Since I live in the modern times, the ghettos are where most people associate poor black to be but at one point the country was still rural. Black people at that time still lived in rural areas and the ghettos in the cities were very small. While racism is a strong, driving force against black people, it is not always racism that makes us associate black people for certain qualities.
It sort of amazes how a term can transform so much over the course of time. Poverty was thought properly to be something caused by a poor person’s actions. People then were able to talk about the “deserving” and “underserving.” Then people started to divide the two categories into two, creating four total distinctions of certain levels of poverty. It is fascinating how much a word can change.
As I read the term “culture of poverty,” it seems very similar to “rape culture.” Both seem to blame the victims for what happened to them. Honestly, I never understood how some people could blame others for something like that. It isn’t like a poor person can suddenly become rich if he tries. There are certain obstacles in the way preventing him from doing so.
It is interesting how social programs at first were actually fueling the culture of poverty. The social programs themselves weren’t providing new opportunities for the underclass. It was simply helping them maintain the same way of life that generations of their families have lived. It kind of surprises me that writings about this did not draw to this conclusion faster. It isn’t straightforward but with more effort, I feel like the connection would have been seen sooner.
