Diana George-Changing the Face of Poverty

Diana George

Changing the Face of Poverty

The reason I chose "Changing the Face of Poverty" is because this essay examined many aspects of the misrepresentation of poverty. It explains the ways society has reacted to the issue at hand. Society believes that they are doing more than is actually being accomplished and George expressed her arguments about theses problems.

Diana George, the director of Composition Studies at Virginia Tech, takes on the role of documenting poverty. She focuses a great deal on activist purposes and organizations that reach out to society. Specifically, George explains that Habitat for Humanity illustrates various misconceptions as well as the problem with different sources explaining the representations of poverty.

George's Project

Diana George's project explains the progression of how poverty has been represented in our society and how the public has reacted to this issue. Society, paintings, media, and non-profit organizations paint a hopeless image that reaches out for help in improving others' lives. George explores that the nonprofit of Habitat for Humanity has many flaws to its organization. Her project gives examples of how our society is not as motivated within our country to help people as compared to other countries. She stresses that all these sources are representing poverty with an emphasis on one side of the issue while ignoring less severe levels of poverty.

Escaping the Cycle of Poverty

Help is a Misconception

George has expressed that Habitat for Humanity is less helpful than it actually seems. The organization in actuality increases the chances of people being in debt and oversimplifies how to address the problem of poverty.

Poverty is a vicious cycle. Within the United States and other countries, there is a limited supply of help. Since there is a lack of help, finding ways to escape poverty is very difficult. Even when the poor advocate for themselves to improve their lives, it takes a great amount of effort to fix.

“Appeals to a nation that believes anyone can achieve economic security with just the right attitude and set of circumstances”

(George 193)

The video clearly shows that volunteering with Habitat for Humanity is a fun easy thing to do. It seems as if you just gather a group of people and build all these wonderful things. However, it is obvious that these videos should not only be showing the extreme side, but also the smaller things they could be doing for our country too. The video also suggests that building these facilities will completely fix the issue of poverty.

This quote portrays a bad message because if achieving economic security was as simple as changing an attitude, the number of poor people would rapidly decrease in a small amount of time, thus we would not have this issue of severe poverty.

Localizing the Issue

One Perspective

Often, pictures contradict what the media is trying to portray. Videos of Habitat for Humanity and most images always show starving children in Africa, usually depicting an image that seems too far away to be realistic which cause people to not feel as bad. Artists, media and most other sources all use similar images depicting the same thing. George uses the example when a Christmas card is sent out in a community displaying that poverty is also an issue that is just down the street. This card contradicts the displacement of poverty where it doesn't seem as bad because it is not close to home. It's goal was to make people recognize that the issue of poverty is all around us.

All images expressed to society represent one perspective of poverty. After being exposed to all these similar, devastating pictures of skeleton children and faces of severe sadness, this causes society to only understand a limited perspective on poverty. Society sees the worst of the worst and doesn’t understand that this is not only a 3rd world country issue. The reason that people think like this is because all organizations depict the worst of the issue, hoping that people will reach out and donate to their projects. Even though this may be helpful and they do reach their monetary goal, they are not portraying the other side of poverty that may not be as severe but these people need money and help as well

This picture shows the average worker clearly avoiding the man sitting on the floor begging for money and ignoring this one individual. But it is upsetting to think that if the worker had the opportunity to donate money or give clothes to a organization sent to another country, one may not think twice about it. This reaction is due to the representations we have been given.

Diana George-Changing the Face of Poverty