The Hidden Injuries of Class

The Hidden Injuries of Class

Description

How does poverty affect everyday life?
***SPECIFICALLY LINK THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS & “HIDDEN INJURIES OF CLASS” TO CHAPTER 7 IN NEWMAN’S “NO SHAME IN MY GAME” AND USE QUOTES FROM NO SHAME IN MY
GAME***In 1972 two sociologists, Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, wrote a book about social class called The Hidden Injuries of Class. In this book they called
attention to many of the ways poverty actually changes everyday life – and, the “hidden” part is that on the surface all the hardships and failings caused by poverty
seem to get blamed on personal failings like laziness and lack of ambition. This is what we call “blaming the victim” – poor people are blamed for their own poverty
and the real forces of economics and politics are taken out of the picture. After all, we like to say, this is the land of the American Dream where hard work =
success. We like to assume that if you are not successful, it must be because you have not worked hard enough. In reality, we never talk about all the many ways
poverty actually hurts poor people. If you can dismiss poor people as “lazy” or “stupid,” you don’t have to look very closely at the real injuries that occur in their
everyday lives.So far this semester you’ve been reading about the working poor (the invisible poor); people who work 40+ hours a week (or more) and are still not
making it. You can see from the reading that they are failing even though they are working incredibly hard. Sennett and Cobb argued that we are not looking at the real
injuries of class – the actual damage poverty does in the lives of the poor.Chapter 7 in No Shame in My Game takes you into the everyday lives of the working poor.
What do you see?Directions:In this essay, I want you to describe how the everyday lives of poor people differ from the everyday lives of people in more financially and
socially stable families who live in safer, more affluent neighborhoods.I want you to look for those hidden injuries. How does poverty injure people and their children
who grow up in impoverished neighborhoods? Remember, some of the workers at the Burger Barn were hard workers, but many of them grew up in families that were quite
dysfunctional. (Think of the two relatively recent Hollywood movies: “Precious” and “The Blind Side.”) Just how hard is it for poor Americans to try to compete with
the achievements of more affluent folks?Some of you have already mentioned some of the “injuries of class” in earlier discussion boards. Don’t just make general,
abstract statements about poverty or affluence – remember, we are interested in the details of “everyday life.” Everything we’ve covered in class so far is relevant
for your analysis. You will be graded on how well you are able to use what you’ve learned to understand the everyday lives of the people you are reading about.

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