Poverty In Carol B. Stack's All Our Kin

1426 Words6 Pages

In Carol B. Stack’s book, All Our Kin, Stack journeys into The Flats, an African-American poverty-stricken community and she narrates her one on one experience with the community themselves. Stack observes that the black urban poor or any other poverty-stricken communities do not come into poverty from an individual’s experience but comes from middle and upper classes, due to their need for lower class labor, which they think is needed for the economy. Stack also talks about the lifestyle of the people in the Flats and their survival to live on within their community. Stack discusses the two pre-requisites that Stack claims that the poor need to accomplish in order to get out of poverty and also the treatment of the poor in the flats from the larger members of the society.
As discussed in All Our Kin, Stack goes over two pre-requisites that the urban poor should take in order to get out of poverty and. These two requirements are the ability to make a nuclear family pattern, and the ability to obtain an equity. The first requirement, the ability to make a nuclear family pattern, which means a family should consist of a married couple and their kids (Embers 206). The second requirement, the ability to obtain an equity, meaning …show more content…

From her experiences she learns a lot of what African Americans do in order to secure their wellbeing since they live in poverty. Her observations shows how people are stuck in poverty due to the harsh treatment of others and these privileged members of the larger community treat in such a way because they are disadvantaged and have an upper hand among them. Stack concludes in her story that people can secure their mobility by following a nuclear family pattern and obtaining equity. In the end, Stack’s experiences helps give light to people in poverty, allowing people to become more aware of these