1) In the article ‘The Marriage Cure: Is wedlock really a way out of poverty?’ author Katherine Boo explores the vicious cycle of economic plight in which women, specifically single, black women find themselves trapped in. For Corean, an eighth grade school dropout, a single mother, finding work with a steady salary seemed unrealistic. For Kim on the other hand, an attractive, sharp-minded, good-looking young woman, the goal of being ‘rich and elegant’ some day is perhaps more attainable. But her situation was made worse by the fact that since she was not a single mother, she did not qualify for the welfare checks or other welfare support, benefits others, like Corean, were eligible for . The ‘Marriage Cure’ is the theory that being single, especially a single parent, is the predominant cause of poverty . By getting married, people can improve their financial status since both partners can work and pool the money. Spending millions on a government initiative to promote marriage as way of poverty alleviation will have very limited results. This is because that most men in Oklahoma were either already in prison or gang members, and those with a steady job were already married with families. Even the single ones were reluctant to marry uneducated females who survived on state welfare . A better use of the money would be to empower the women themselves to earn better and be independent; this would also increase their chances of finding a compatible partner.
2) In the article ‘Opportunities and insecurities: globalization, localities and the struggle for urban land in Manila, author Erhard Berner has highlighted how globalization further increases the income gap between classes within a country, as well as creating a steep economic differential between developing and developed countries . Berner suggests that since the benefits of globalization trickle down to only a limited proportion of the population – those who already possess the resources of land, labor and capital to invest – the salary earning classes have become the city’s new slum society. For their survival and in order to hold on to the land they live on, whether it is legally their own or not, they rely on a close-knit system of community for support. Informal associations are formed, comprising the more mature and resourceful representatives of these groups, who, while lacking any formal power, have the trust of the community in fighting for their uplift . Berner describes the establishment of a ‘barrio communal system’ in which, deprived societies use whatever means are at their disposal in order to survive, prevent their greatest threat which is of being evicted, and instead of an governmental support, support themselves and newcomers that join the community.
3) In the article ‘Us Against Them: Ethnocentrism and Politics, Cindy Kam have highlighted how the people of New Orleans were stubbornly determined to return to their homeland and resume their lives exactly the way they were used to before Katrina struck in 2005 . The resources allocated by the government were directed towards improving the city’s safety, which included adding to the number of levees as well as raising their height, so floodwater would not get through. However, despite government warnings to the contrary, people began returning to their submerged towns, even before the disaster management bodies had declared New Orleans safe for inhabitation. Despite government issued directives that any new construction would only take place on raised embankments, the people who returned early refused to listen and began rebuilding exactly where their ancestral home had been for centuries. Suggestions by urban planners and geologists to shift inhabitants to safer states by establishing special housing projects were rejected. What would have helped the situation is if the government had taken a stricter approach and not caved to the political pressures that allowed the people to return and resume lives. This lapse is likely to cause more loss of life and property if another hurricane strikes New Orleans again .
4) The desire to be fairer stems from the fact that the color of one’s skin is equated with social status, success, empowerment, wealth and desirability. At the article ‘Fair and anxious: on mimicry and skin lightening in India’, author Shehzad Nadeem traces this fairness obsession to the history of invasions; the fair-colored Aryans who subjugated the dark-colored Dravidians, or the white British’s colonial rule . Thus being fair became a lot more than just a self-esteem issue. The masses believed that in order to move up in the world, to achieve their dreams of becoming rich and successful and to dominate and lead others, a fair complexion was essential . This perception continues even today where, be it landing lucrative jobs or getting married, the color of one’s skin becomes the most important question. The concept of mimetic desire also comes into play. Since most of the developed world, even today consists of white people, there is also an inspirational element to becoming fair like the successful whites and attain the luxuries they enjoy in life .
Works Cited
Berner, Erhard. "Opportunities and insecurities: Globalisation, localities and the struggle for urban land in Manila." Journal of Development Research (1997): 167-182. Online.
Boo, Katherine. "The Marriage Cure: Is wedlock really a way out of poverty?" The New Yorker 18 August 2003: 5. Online.
Bourne, Joel K. "New Orleans: A Perilous Future." National Geographic August 2007: 1-5. Print.
Lawtoo, Nidesh. The Phantom of the Ego: Modernism and the Mimetic Unconscious. Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2013. Print.
