Sociology

We live in a world of black and white. Things are or they are not. One is constantly expected to subscribe to one and only one camp on virtually all topics in life, including the travesties of poverty. Well, Im purporting all areas in life are, as they should be, gray. As weve learned in this class, poverty is not going away and the roots, causes and solutions are varied. Assigning the blame on the culture within poverty or our societys culture at large does little to hold accountable the structural actions and inactions at play. The converse is true as well placing all blame on structural apathy and inequity does little to get at the real problems at hand. The answer lies somewhere in the gray area. that special place where both can own up to responsibility and reach out to truly activate change. The problem is, society doesnt like gray or solutions that work, apparently. The truth is, without poverty (and the cultures that go with it,) who is going to flip our burgers, collect our trash and fight our wars

Withstanding the potential negative realties the above statements suggest, many cultures surface in each socio economic status realm in America today.  In Flat Broke With Children, Sharon Hays touches on many of these cultures the multiple youth, womens and ethnic cultures the multiple middle-class, yuppie and working-class cultures and even defines specific characteristics that stereotypically go with each of these sub-cultures. This all sets up her work on multiple cultures of poverty, which brings into question a whole series of further arguments. One thing she notes is that all of these culturesand in specific, the multiple cultures of povertyare neither static nor all-encompassing.1 However, beginning to dissect these various sub-cultures within the umbrella culture of poverty, we create a space for further investigation and dialogue on the origins, perpetuation and solutions of poverty. We see there isnt only one answer to any of the tougher questions.

She goes out of her way to provide ample evidence through individual stories and family situations in her book. The great priest Zadok once said, Each human being is a secret. All humans have a story to tell and its the uniqueness of each our stories that both allow for common threads to be woven through groups based on various characteristics and allow for us to stand apart and demand individual attention and support based on this uniqueness.

Once structures and powers that be come to terms with the reality that pigeonholing groups based on socio-economic status, race or any other traits that cant fully describe the human raceand then acting accordingly with the skewed resultsisnt possible, then the dialogue between the camps can begin. Until there is a STOP to Sharon Hays supposition that, two competing messages are able to satisfy two distinct constituencies,2 thus allowing the perpetuation of competing interests--and blame that goes with them- then we can forget about any forward progress towards the obliteration of poverty.