reflection week 11

This week we discussed the issue of poverty which I personally believe is a much larger issue than we were able to cover but this week did give a good brief introduction. Wednesday we visited Bread for the City which I thought was really interesting. It is an incredible organization that should have a much broader reach than it does currently. When the presenter discussed her personal views about the programs needed to help solve the issue it revealed many aspects to poverty that I had not previously considered, such as stress management. That was something that I had overlooked when considering the issue of poverty but once she mentioned it I saw that a lack of it was a very important component of the problem and its presence a key to the solution. Also I found it pertinent how she discussed the issue of racism within the public planning of the city. The historically African American areas of the city are the last to receive a grocery store and the most affected by the problem of poverty. This reveals certain social values that are still present in American society as much as we would like to pretend that they are not.
During our UC Common Event I also saw how film can reflect the social values of a society and in many ways challenge those values. I was in the Critical Approach to the Cinema group and for our assignment we had to watch the movie, “Night of the Living Dead” which was a black-and-white zombie movie made in the 1960’s. The film was made at a time when racism was still a part of American society and very few African American actors appeared in films at all and when they did they often played murders, rapists, or drug dealers. However, the lead actor in “Night of the Living Dead” was an African American man named Ben and at first in the movie you think that he is a zombie, one of the monsters. This reveals society’s widely held view that African American men are monsters meant to be feared. However, as character after character is killed Ben holds onto life until the very end and he is clearly shown as the only intelligent, responsible, and moral character in the film. Not only did this movie reveal the commonly held social views of the time but it also challenged them and attempted to convince people to reevaluate their perspectives.
This concept relates to world politics because the way we view people as a society determines how we treat them and whether or not we marginalize them whether domestically or internationally. Our public policy is a reflection and a product of our societal views and often these policies can lead to the marginalization and oppression of people and a piece of that is the poverty that many people are subjected to because of these policies. Sometimes it takes a nongovernmental force to come in and change the situation such as Bread for the City or cultural forces including art and film to change public opinion and help reverse some of these situations albeit slowly.