Firebaugh brings up very interesting points in his article. It is very interesting looking at the concept of "inequality across nations to inequality within nations". Although there is more money and income in the world, the rich are still becoming richer and the poor are getting poorer. By the inequality being found within the nations that leads me to believe, and agree, there are rich and poor found nearly everywhere and in every country across the planet. Why are the rich not helping out the poor in their own country? Shouldn't people be looking out for each other and trying to better one another to make their place of living more powerful? It is becoming easier for the rich to make money and harder for the poor. If there were more assistance among each other to reach a better society everyone would be better off. The gap between rich and poor is forever growing. It is sad that in all reality people are more into bettering the self and we have become a much more individualistic society.
It is also interesting looking at the idea of things being much better off now than before. The only benefit I see is the technology. There is still income inequality, rich v poor, market crashes, and our very own version of the great depression. Firebaugh discusses this idea of things being better off now and looking at greater life expectancies.
Income inequality is something that will be around for a long time and may never get better. It is something that keeps people seperated and will continue to create greater inequality. We need to get the idea of doing only things for ourselves and think about other people. If we want this world to continue in peace, something needs to be changed. Good luck with that.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Massive Global Income Inequality
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Age of Extremes
Poverty: something hard to define, something that will always be there, and something that needs to changed. In this article, Massey discusses poverty in the United States as well as other countries. He also discusses the concentration of affluence and how the social classes are constantly drifting apart. He discusses much inequatlity involved with poverty
Reading this article made me think a lot, espeically after reading others comments and feelings on it. Poverty is something that is a major issue in the United States yet it does not seem as if much is being done to fix it. It blows my mind how the budget is spent and all those celebrities that are out adopting babies from other countries and donating massive amount of money to them. Take a look at what just happend over in Haiti. Yes, I feel terrible for there struggles, losses, and their great need of help but what about us, the United States. Why are we always expected to go over and help all of these disaster areas; who helped up with Katrina? I know the United States is seen as one of the best places to live but we do not have our shit together. The US is such a young country and we need to learn from others.
Poverty and inequality will never go away; its what makes the world go round. Not everything can be equal when it comes to everything. As much as it sucks, there has to be the rich and there has to be the poor. I personally recieve grants for schooling; I am not wealthy by any means. But I understand I have the opportunity from government funding to achieve bigger and better things for myself. I think the working and middle classes are better off. We are not priviledged with all the luxories in the world but we have the opportunity to make it ourselves and have that wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
The leaders of this world need to quit spending all of our money on things we dont need to. They need to continue to support education in order to have a better off society.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Kanter’s article looks at the division of power between minorities in a work place. It looks at how a person in a minority doesn’t represent themselves, but they represent all of the people that are in a certain minority. Kanter uses women that work at the Industrial Supply Company as an example of a minority. Kanter goes on to explain the hardships that a minority group faces in the work place.
The women at the company are considered “tokens” that is that they are a group that is different from the dominant group. This happens when there is a ratio that is about 85:15. The women in this case are considered “tokens” because there are less of them. This presents problems for the “tokens” because they stand out in every aspect of the job. This is a double edged sword, because anything good they do reflects on female employees good, but anything bad makes all the women look bad. Kanter uses a great example: XXxxXXxXOXxX In this model the X’s represent the men. There are uppercase and lowercase X’s to show the different level of male employees. The O represents the women that work at the company. They stick out and are noticed because they are different.
Because “tokens” stick out they respond to the pressure by over achieving or they try to hide themselves and not draw attention. Women went as far as trying to conceal their feminine features and attributes to blend into the all male work force. They would do low visibility jobs and let the men be the public representatives for the company. The overachievers would do everything they could to get to the top. This put them in a place of power over some men, but mainly over the other women. The problem with this is that the women that became higher-ups started doing something that I found interesting. They would not allow other members of their minority or other “tokens” to achieve the same level. The women in power saw other women as a threat to their power that they had worked hard to achieve. They would literally try and stop their minority form getting to the same level that they had achieved.
To have to operate as a token puts a lot of pressure on minorities. Tokens either choose to hide their success and play it off to not stick out and remain part of the group or they will take advantage of the publicity that they cause by being in a position of power. The latter can cause problems for the token though and they may be seen a “troublemaker” if that is the case they reflect poorly on the other tokens.
The Problem of the Twentieth Century is the Problem of the Color Line
Du Bois’ article is his own account of the struggles that African Americans faced at the turn of the nineteenth century. Du Bois writes of how the African-American community saw the new century as a fresh start. They believed that with slavery several decades behind them that they would be able to become equals, much like other ethnic groups had done after they assimilated into the American culture. What they received from white America was more of the same war, hate, the revolt of the colored people and the fear of more war. He goes on to explain that as time went on things got slightly better for them as a whole.
Du Bois explains that there are seven “burdens” that he sees that need to overcome. The color line that was in place was keeping the African-Americans from having basic essentials that all of Americans have; he says they are education, The right to vote, civil rights, an adequate wage, a free press to fight their battles, and they longed for social equality which at the time was almost unthinkable. These were all things that they had, but they were all inadequate from the rest of America.
Du Bois points out that in the North they were closer to what they strived for than the people living in the South on all of the latter issues. Du Bois does an excellent job of pointing out the struggles that were felt in all of the areas that they believed they should have equality especially after world war two and how African-American soldiers that had fought for the their country returned to a land of inequality and hardships. His final statement “in the long run America will not thank its black children if they help it go the wrong way, or retard its progress.” This statement epitomizes what the article is about that no matter what African-Americans did they were still stuck behind a line drawn in the sand and that line was what he called the color line.