Response to: Changing the Face of Poverty
There is an oversimplification of the vast issue of poverty throughout the United States. Unfortunately, as Diana George argues in her essay Changing the Face of Poverty, the organizations with the primary goal of eradicating global poverty may be the ones contributing to the very problem they fight against. This is a result of the way they represent poverty in their advertisements. She uses the ads of Habitat for Humanity as her focus to dissect the practices found across many organizations with good intentions, but detrimental results. Their public campaigns often rely heavily on stereotypes (543), which George believes "often fail to overturn cultural commonplaces that represent poverty as an individual problem that can be addressed on an individual basis." (545) Habitat must move past using "the most common understandings of poverty in America" (546), which relies on visuals of run-down homes and miserably ragged people, and embrace the complexity of poverty.
Diana George is certainly correct when she claims that the common representations of poverty limit our understanding of it. By delineating an imagine of the poor as people whose problem can be quickly fixed with some time and money (549), we damage America's cultural perception of poverty in the long run. George states that one of the biggest issues with Habitat's representation is that it gives a sense that "the signs of poverty are visible and easily recognized." (548) The reality is that poverty doesn't always look like a decaying Third World country. Poverty has many forms and backgrounds. Growing up in Brooklyn, where one neighborhood is vastly different in average income from the next, this resonates strongly. Poverty doesn't have to be a broken down home of a shack or a tattered old T-shirt. Poverty is seeing one of your old friends from elementary school using social media to promote her kickstarter to help her raise funds for college, because she lives with a single mother who can't afford all the tuition. Poverty is volunteering as an SAT tutor over the summer to give students free classes, but still hearing students talk about how there's not enough time to do practice tests because they're obligated to work to help support their family. It's not something that can always be easily seen on the surface; sometimes, it's subtle. George sites Paul Wellstone's call to action, "We can offer no single description of American poverty." (557)
In order to truly tackle poverty, there must be a much larger cultural shift, both within the average American's mind and within governmental institutions. George includes Bush's egregious statement about the lack of "real hunger" (547) in the United States, which contradicts with the findings of the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Bush administration seems to have been attempting to uphold the false image of an overall wealthy nation. The Habitat for Humanity slogan, "hand up not a hand out" also strongly reflects American culture and our unfavorable perceptions of people in need. A "hand out" is perceived as something disgraceful and given to those who are described, according to bell hooks, as "synonymous with depravity, lack and worthlessness." (548) This stems from the historically popular American value of individualism and the “self-made man.” Many Americans look down upon the poor as people who simply didn’t work hard enough. Perhaps the government needs to embrace the "radical" ideas of Habitat of Humanity, which enable an "entirely different lifestyle" (547) where the poor could buy a home with no interest, and we all take responsibility for each other as a collective society. George does claim that there is a "myth that poverty cannot/does not actually exist in the heart of capitalism." (547) However, she does not go into depth the extent that the values of capitalism affect the issue of how we perceive poverty.
There are still many difficult questions to face when dealing with the many people in the United States who live in inadequate shelter and other poor living conditions. There remain issues of who is deemed "deserving" of low-cost homes (549), and how to represent the many sides of poverty in a quick advertisement. Perhaps organizations like similar to Habitat for Humanity fear that without the familiar images of broken windows and unwashed children, there would be a much smaller donor base. Nevertheless, even if stereotypical images bring in more money in the short term, the representation of poverty must also take into the consideration how these visuals hurt their causes and stagnate cultural and political shifts overtime.
Diana George is certainly correct when she claims that the common representations of poverty limit our understanding of it. By delineating an imagine of the poor as people whose problem can be quickly fixed with some time and money (549), we damage America's cultural perception of poverty in the long run. George states that one of the biggest issues with Habitat's representation is that it gives a sense that "the signs of poverty are visible and easily recognized." (548) The reality is that poverty doesn't always look like a decaying Third World country. Poverty has many forms and backgrounds. Growing up in Brooklyn, where one neighborhood is vastly different in average income from the next, this resonates strongly. Poverty doesn't have to be a broken down home of a shack or a tattered old T-shirt. Poverty is seeing one of your old friends from elementary school using social media to promote her kickstarter to help her raise funds for college, because she lives with a single mother who can't afford all the tuition. Poverty is volunteering as an SAT tutor over the summer to give students free classes, but still hearing students talk about how there's not enough time to do practice tests because they're obligated to work to help support their family. It's not something that can always be easily seen on the surface; sometimes, it's subtle. George sites Paul Wellstone's call to action, "We can offer no single description of American poverty." (557)
In order to truly tackle poverty, there must be a much larger cultural shift, both within the average American's mind and within governmental institutions. George includes Bush's egregious statement about the lack of "real hunger" (547) in the United States, which contradicts with the findings of the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Bush administration seems to have been attempting to uphold the false image of an overall wealthy nation. The Habitat for Humanity slogan, "hand up not a hand out" also strongly reflects American culture and our unfavorable perceptions of people in need. A "hand out" is perceived as something disgraceful and given to those who are described, according to bell hooks, as "synonymous with depravity, lack and worthlessness." (548) This stems from the historically popular American value of individualism and the “self-made man.” Many Americans look down upon the poor as people who simply didn’t work hard enough. Perhaps the government needs to embrace the "radical" ideas of Habitat of Humanity, which enable an "entirely different lifestyle" (547) where the poor could buy a home with no interest, and we all take responsibility for each other as a collective society. George does claim that there is a "myth that poverty cannot/does not actually exist in the heart of capitalism." (547) However, she does not go into depth the extent that the values of capitalism affect the issue of how we perceive poverty.
There are still many difficult questions to face when dealing with the many people in the United States who live in inadequate shelter and other poor living conditions. There remain issues of who is deemed "deserving" of low-cost homes (549), and how to represent the many sides of poverty in a quick advertisement. Perhaps organizations like similar to Habitat for Humanity fear that without the familiar images of broken windows and unwashed children, there would be a much smaller donor base. Nevertheless, even if stereotypical images bring in more money in the short term, the representation of poverty must also take into the consideration how these visuals hurt their causes and stagnate cultural and political shifts overtime.