Revised Post-Assessment Response

Liming Huang

English 120

Prof. Breech

11 December 2014

In the article “Changing the Face of Poverty: Nonprofits and the Problem of Representation” Diana George was responding the issue of poverty in the U.S.A.

Nowadays, you do not need to go out of the country to discover poverty. People outside of the U.S. often link prosperity with America due to all the advanced technology that Americans had brought to the world. However, poverty is still prevalent in America. And the serious issue at this time is that poor people get poorer, and the rich people get richer. The imbalance of income of people is hurting the society.  Therefore, people with better financial background should dedicate more to the society “not just by writing a check, but by enabling an entirely different lifestyle… with the donated time and material” (page 4). One way that people can enhance the society is by volunteering. Volunteer effort could bring individual out of the poverty circle. People could help the homeless people to build a house so that they have a place to live in. Although we cannot fulfill all of their basic needs, at least we made the house for them for protection.

Another issue of poverty in our society is that people are trying not to be identified as poor, because in this culture “poverty is synonymous with depravity, lack and worthlessness” (page 5). They do not want to be called poor, so people possess material things that show success such as a laptop or computer. They feel like they will look less poor when they have these material possessions. And therefore they will feel better for themselves.  However, this is not a nice way of living one’s life, if the people who need the help but do not want to be addressed poverty, how do we identify them and give them help? Furthermore, the society has given the label about poverty and often related to the ideology of undeservingness; they are poor because they are lazy or criminal, so they do not deserve our help and kindness. The government, instead of putting so much time and effort in fixing the country’s economic ills by giving more jobs and more benefit, they should take out some time to comfort the poor without discriminating them as “deserving” or “undeserving.”

Not everyone could afford to donate a house to the homeless people, but certainly we could all donate some time and effort to build a house for the people who need it. People who have money can write a check for donation; for people who want to help but cannot because of the financial issues, they now could help the society by donating their time.