Valentin Kokonozi Hum 102 030 Professor Walts 21 February 2016 What is Poverty to Me Poverty, as defined by google, is the state of being “extremely” poor. This is a real dramatic way of knowing how bad the word is compared to the real life representation of the word poverty. Reading Jo Goodwin Parker’s article, titled “What is Poverty?”, in the book “America’s other Children: Public Schools Outside Suburbs”, By George Henderson, had a very deep message in between the words of her writing. This was even more of a message since these were all personal accounts from Mrs. Parker herself. Poverty to me means it is very difficult, but not impossible, to afford necessities to live with. Necessities like toilet paper, clothes, blankets, and other basic sanitary or equipments of comfort in a home. I always thought people had homes, weather it being an apartment or a average size house. I’ve had this idea of poverty when i was a little kid. People try to cover your eyes to real poverty at an early age to not subject you to thinking too much about it. Along with instructions to make you focused on education or activities that don’t end up making you in poverty such as these situations. I say this now sitting in my own room, in my family’s house, with a tablet that has internet, listening to music and under a nice warm blanket. I just got out of work, my job that i’ve had for 2 years now making a great amount of money. This money I save, no need to spend
since i don’t have the need to. I went to work with the car that i paid for with my money. These are all luxuries that Mrs. Parker never had during her time, and she overcame these and survived along while taking care of 3 kids. This is what poverty, by definition, is in the real world. Mrs. Parker has a sad and horrible experience with poverty and she has the right to write her view about it and talk about what poverty really is. She has since made me shed tears, enlightened me on the experiences some very kind people have to deal with everyday with poverty. Moreover, has changed my thought of what poverty really is described as. There are people who walk around with smart phones and great shoes, they walk around looking great and stable financially and probably will be spending quality time wih their friends, but in reallity are strugling with monatary problems under the shroud that they cover themselves with to not show the public. That’s is what i thought poverty was, but that is nowhere near the real definition if someone living in poverty. Mrs. Parker explained her story which i had a hard time reading in one siting since it’s too much for me to read at once without breaking out alittle and thinking over what she had to go through with these daily struggles she had. I’ve have never seen someone in person with these exact lives to live with, so it was kinda hard to only hear about it, but seeing it would be very tough to think about. Putting the picture with the description is a hard game of matching since i have never really been exposed to these extreme situations, even with living next to a very poor and develpoing location such as Paterson. Mrs. Parker has changed my perspective of people in poverty, and people who are just poor. This line that was once blurry is now a clear definite mountaion from eachother. Her words
were hard to hear but they were understood none the less. Poverty was always a blurry line that was hard to understna dand picture since i have never been exposed to these in real life. It is kinda hard to visualize and even harder to understand how to get out of these since the path is so easy and the journey out of it is just that, a journey, with no emns in sight. Mrs. Parker has now changed my perspective of poverty and it’s true definition, “Someone who is extremely poor”.
