Analysis Of Seeing And Making Culture: Representing The Poor By Gloria Watkins

Gloria Watkins is the author of the essay Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor however, when she wrote this essay she used the pen name Bell Hooks and that is how she will be addressed. Hooks’ essay is her assessment on the light in how the upper class society sees the lower class or “poor” society. The multiple prejudices that the upper class people have towards the “poor” is one of the leading topics for Hooks’ essay. In her essay, Hooks uses some suggestions from a fellow scholar named Cornel West. Hooks uses West’s statement, “that black intellectuals within the “professional-managerial class in the United States advanced capitalist society” must “engage in a kind of critical self-inventory, a historical situating and positioning

In doing this, everyone could realize that the poor people are just like everyone else and they deserved to be judged as so. No one in the world likes to be judged because of the way they look. Each and every person prefers to be seen for the person they are and the characteristics one has. The self confidence of each individual is often determined by what other people think without taking the time to get to know someone. The worth of a person is not judged by someone’s wealth and possessions but by their actions. Poor people can read this essay and use it as a tool to take action and work with the wiling upper class to help their communities succeed. As a team, both classes can make improvements economically. Just because a person is poor, does not mean that they are worthless, they just do not have the resources to do it on their

Just because a person is in the middle class or upper class does not automatically make them intelligent and a person with good morals. This also means a poor person is not automatically dumb or evil. The people of society today need to stop making such horrible judgments so that everyone can work together to potentially defeat poverty. Each and every person is either rich or poor and thus every person deserves to be treated with great dignity and respect. Hooks uses multiple emotional and logical arguments to address this point in her essay. For the emotional appeal, Hooks uses her own experiences to pull the reader in to seeing what it is like to be that “poor” person. “Progressive intellectuals from rich classes who are themselves obsessed with gaining material wealth are uncomfortable with the insistence that one can be poor, yet lead a rich and meaningful life” (Hooks 436). In order to convince oneself and others that one is worth more, they dehumanized the poor and labeled them as dishonest and lazy. Just because a person owns a million dollar house and five cars does not mean that person is more honest or hardworking than a poor person who can barely afford a Junker car. Most millionaires hardly do any labor and would most likely refuse to do anything if asked to do so. Those who happen to be in the poor and working class do not have a