If not us than who?

the following is a paper that i wrote for my sociology class. it gives a slight background into what we are studying this week, we right these papers in response to a topic in the book that we want to summarize and then take a little further. last week i wrote about human trafficking and drug cartels...this is what i came up with this week. feel free to leave your input. its just a good realization and reminder that we are not the only people on this planet.

If not us, than who?

In chapters 8 and 9 it covers mainly different perspectives of stratification. It starts out talking about it on a closer level and how it shows up in the United States in classes such as the capitalist class, managerial class, small business class, and the working class as outlined by Erik Wright (Kendall, 259). The book then steps back and looks at it from a global view in chapter 9 (Kendall, 282).

These chapters present a deeper look into wealth and poverty in the world and how it differs in a whole as well as in nations. One of the main things that stepped out is the presence of absolute poverty (Kendall, 269). It is defined as a level of economic depravation that exists when people do not have the means to secure the most basic necessities of life. This can show up as being able to provide food for a family and clean water but also other things that would lead to a better quality of life such as housing, education, safety, and health. When these necessities are not met there is a decrease in life expectancy, an increase in crime, gaps in human development, decline in health…just to list a few.

The part of this that makes this difficult topic even more harsh and shocking is the persistent extremes that are present not in just global inequality but even in close quarters. This is something that was made aware to me a few years ago when my family went to Brazil and we could be in a lovely section of town that was secure, on the forefronts of medical education, and just a tropical paradise to be in and we were able to walk a short distance and be in the middle of slums and junkyards in a moment. This was also presented to me more recent when a good friend of mine went on a trip to South Africa. The stories that she could tell about how in view, just across a high way there was such a difference in quality of life. On one side there could be boutiques, colleges, and what we perceive to be rights for a human and then within a stones throw she saw a little girl digging through trash trying to find food where in a pile of garbage where she had also used the bathroom. The fears of these children are also hard to take in as their biggest fears could be kept out if they had basic shelter that even we considered to be less than acceptable could be well above a luxury. My friend was talking about how these people have so little but they are not even aware of how little they have compared to their neighbors or to other people in the world where there is an over abundance of clothing, water, food, and shelter.

Here in the United States we take for granted how far above others we are in a grand social class. Even on the days where we feel like we might be on the low run of our societies and see others that have things we desire and long for we are still beyond blessed to have basic needs. We do not fear of animals coming and taking us or those around us as they do in South Africa, we do not spend much time worrying about getting infections that we will not be able to clean and recover from just to name a few differences.

Global stratifications is present in the world. We are not all on the same level of incomes but we are all human. We just have different qualities, traits, and locations on the planet. We should strive to make it so that people have those basic needs met. If we were to look past ourselves and to those in need around us we could eliminate things like poverty and have a safe environment for people that included drinking water, food, and basic education. Yet we spend so much time trying to make a name for ourselves and climb social ranks other than helping out someone have their most basic necessities and needs met.