Black Men Are Vulnerable

1. A heightened vulnerability is a major commonalty between the families in &2.00 a Day. In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about how an African American man cannot have control of his body. Black men are vulnerable in this country; at any moment a black life can be taken. In $2.00 a Day, Edin and Shaefer takes that same vulnerability mentioned by Coates over a hundred times and expands on it. Although black Americans do have disadvantages in this country, vulnerability is regardless of race and gender. There is no one more vulnerable than the poor. They are at the mercy of the people who decides to help them. For example, Rae, a single mother is fired from her job at Wal-Mart when she does not have gas money to get to work. Gas money that her family took and spent. She and her small daughter are living with their adopted aunt and uncle. They also are living with three other people in the house. Rae has nowhere to go, and cannot rely on the father of her child. When Rae lived with him, he cheated, beat her and took her money. Her aunt and uncle insists on managing her SNAP and the welfare checks of the other residents. Rae has no choice but to abide by their rules and hand over her only source of "money".

Then there is Jennifer, another woman who is

One thing that Edin and Shaefer makes abundantly clear is that poverty has no face. Victims of a failing economic system come from different backgrounds and all have different stories. The 1.2 million families below the poverty line are black, white, Hispanic and Asian. Although there are different types of families living on $2.00 a day, many of the families have commonalities. For instance, I believe that Madonna, Jennifer and Rae had the most in common. I could list everything that they had in common, (would definitely make writing five pages easier) but there is one core commonality between these women, that not only connects them to each other, but also to majority of families living in