AMERICA CAN’T FIX POVERTY UNTIL IT STOPS HATING POOR PEOPLE

By: John A. Powel and Arthur Brooks

Published: City Lab, Oct 10 2017, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/america-cant-fix-poverty-until-it-stops-hating-poor-people/542397/

Level of Difficulty:**

BEFORE YOU READ

·         Poverty isn’t a lack of character, it is a lack of cash https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash/discussion

·         Hell is other people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J6U7eGGoVg

QUESTIONS

1.       Would Jean Paul Sartre have felt that his quote “Hell is other people” applied to modern day America? Why?

2.       What worrying conclusion was reached as a result of the 2001 word-association study?

3.       Acc to the 2002 study the poor are unlike any other out-group in that…

4.       We might assume from the text that lack of sufficient cultural contact with the poor gives birth to…. (There are two possible answers; find both)

5.       Watch the following video on The Benjamin Franklin Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMsxYztfrvA.  What conclusion can we draw from the video and the text concerning the public attitude to the poor?  

6.       Read the account of the 1971 University of North Carolina experiment. What was the result of the experiment?

7.       What conclusion can we draw from this experiment concerning the attitude to the poor?

8.       One reason why poor black people or poor Muslims may face even greater antagonism could be the fact that…

9.       Read the negative effects of othering listen in the text. What conclusion can we draw from them?

10.   What is the function of the paragraph beginning “Without intervention…”?

11.   Read the account of the welfare programs. The writer feels these programs have more disadvantages than advantages / more advantages than disadvantages / disadvantages and advantages.

12.   The biggest mistake policy makers are making concerning dealing with out-groups is …

13.   The policies to deal with the poor will work on the condition that there is….

14.   Read on from “Focusing…” to the end of the text. Imagine you are placing the last sentence of the text right at the beginning of the section. Which two sentences would you select to follow it?

WRITING TASK

First alternative

Use all the information you have gleaned to write an essay discussing the causes and effects of othering. In your conclusion, suggest solutions.

Second alternative

Watch the play “No Exit” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoE_gpCFHQs  by Jean Paul Sartre and write an essay discussing your impressions

AMERICA CAN’T FIX POVERTY UNTIL IT STOPS HATING POOR PEOPLE; KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES

This brilliant and insightful text addresses a deep rooted problem: dealing with poverty and how best to deal with it. By cutting to the chase and not paying lip service to the classic solutions it opens our eyes to the underlying issues. It should lead to lively discussion and a good essay.

1.       Yes he would, because we see whole groups of people unlike ourselves as undesirable “other”

2.       Americans exhibit a disturbing level of antipathy towards those on the economic margins. (The sentence including the percentages is the result of the experiment and not the conclusion we can draw)

3.       Only the poor were consistently classified as both unfriendly and incompetent

4.       Antipathy OR widespread negative attitudes

5.       The negative attitude towards the poor is a result of the separation (OR: The separation causes the negative attitude towards the poor)

6.       The teachers rated the learners they had insulted more negatively than the people they had praised or encouraged

7.       Middle class and wealthy Americans’ social distance from people in poverty exists in a mutually reinforcing cycle with the contempt they feel towards them

8.       The overlay of multiple identities such as race, class, religion and ethnicity may cause othering to grow more intense

9.       Othering is a political and social process and it poses a grave moral problem.

10.   It is a bridge paragraph which connects the analysis of the causes of the problem to the solutions

11.   Disadvantages and advantages

12.   Not restoring them to a position in which they are needed

13.    A deep moral consensus: a shared belief in the equal dignity of all people.

14.    There are many things we share, not least among them is the fact that almost everyone is descended from people whose families experienced poverty and marginalization ; What very few American families have in their past is power and privilege