Seeing And Making Culture Analysis

In the article “Seeing and Making Culture” by Bell Hooks, Bell argues that society has a wrong outlook of the poor community. Her goal is to try and change everyone’s image of these people. She successfully supports her claim by using authority (ethos) and values (pathos) to explain her claim and why she feels so strongly about this situation. According to the census,
“Between 2015 and 2016, the poverty rate for children under age 18 declined from 19.7 to 18.0 percent. The poverty rate for adults aged 18-64 declined from 12.4 to 11.6 percent. The poverty rate for adults aged 65 and older was 9.3 percent in 2016, not statistically different from the rate in 2015.” (Jessica L. Semega, Kayla R. Fontenot, and Melissa A. Kollar, 2017.)
Bell wants
Her mother and father both worked extremely hard to make a living but could barely make enough money to run their house hold. With nine people to feed and care for things were rough and money was extremely tight. Money was so tight that likes as simple as having water to drink was a luxury to them and they treasured it when they had the honor of having it. Bell did not realize she was “poor” until she went to college and saw how much other people had and how she did not have much of anything. Although she was very quiet and kept to herself, she often talked and was able to connect with people around campus instead of getting upset that she was not able to go home for the holidays like everyone else was. Bell felt very passionate about equality and that people should be treated equally no matter what class they were in. She spoke out and began to write about her feelings towards equality. In fact, she wrote her first book at the young age on nineteen years old. Her first book was called “Ain't I a Woman”. A biography written about Bell Hooks explains her turn in
She wants people to know that just because some people do not have as much money or materialistic items as others, does not mean that they are not trying to better themselves and their family. As stated earlier, her parents worked constantly and still, they had trouble providing for their children. Does this make them bad parents? Bell talks a lot about how stereotypes view and talk down about “lower-classes”. (Hooks, 1994) “I contested stereotypical negative representations of poverty. I was especially disturbed by the assumption that the poor were without values…” (p.235). Bell shows the importance of her claim by stressing the fact that people who were poor were really good people because they know how it is to be without. (Hooks, 1994) “Taught to believe that poverty could be the breeding ground of moral integrity, of a recognition if the significance of communion, of sharing resources with others in the black church, I was prepared to embrace the teachings of laboratory theology, which emphasizes solidarity with the poor.” (p.235). She believed that being poor made people better people believe it or not. People who have it “hard” have to work for what they have and they are grateful for everything they do