http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/07/14/black-children-are-nearly-four-times-as-likely-as-white-children-to-live-in-poverty-report-says/ “Black children are nearly four times as likely as white children to live in poverty, report says”
What is poverty? Poverty is the state of being extremely poor or the state of being inferior in quality. Poverty is a major issue in America today. according to this article, the poverty rate of white children is four times less likely to live in property than black children. This article talks about how children under the age of 18 in America make up a very large portion of the world’s population. Even though the economy has greatly improved over the past years, the poverty levels for black children have not.
A theoretical perspective that can relate to this article would be social equality. Basically social equality is that everyone in a society has equal access to various things such as status, wealth, goods and services. There are two types of inequality, the first is physical inequality and the second is political inequality. Physical inequality is just differences in physical features such as health and age. Political inequality is just differences in people that have more power or money. Political inequality is the one that is going to focused on more.
The theoretical perspective social inequality can relate to the above article. Mark Berman states in his article, “Black children are nearly four times as likely as white children to live in poverty, report says” that, “White households essentially had 13 times the median wealth of black households, and 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households” ( Berman 2014). This is a very big issue. White households have a significantly higher median wealth than black and hispanic households. It is obvious that white children have an advantage in society and even life itself. Being more financially stable allows those to live in a home, have a proper diet that can sustain life and even have access to healthcare. This is very far from everyone being equal in society.
A sociological perspective on media that relates to this article would be hegemony. This relates to this article because the article uses its dominance by using various charts and numbers to tell us that black children are four times more likely to be in poverty than white children. Since “The Washington Post” is a reputable source combined with the charts and numbers used in the article, we are naturally moved toward the idea that black children will always live in poverty.
Hegemony is the idea that in which a dominant group uses power to win over the consent of the popular masses. The way this news depicts certain groups or individuals does include racist stereotypes. We are made to believe that that black children are poor and that they will always live in poverty. However, in this article it says, “the number of black children in poverty (4.2 million) actually edged out the number of white children in poverty (4.1 million) (Berman 2014). The number of black children in poverty is not that much off from white children. So why do we always assume that all black men, women and children are always less financially stable than white men, women and children. This is not always the case but the media has a bind around minds. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/nyregion/corrections-officer-kills-man-during-attempted-robbery-in-queens.html “Corrections Officer Kills Man During Attempted Robbery in Queens” In this article it talks about a man that attempts to rob five motorcyclists motorcycles. The man was armed with a gun. Unfortunately, the man was shot in his head by an off duty corrections officer. The man that was shot was pronounced dead when he arrived at the hospital. He was very young being 26 years when he died. The most interesting fact in this article is that the man that was shot had been arrested more than 50 times in his life and he was only 26 years old at that time. One theoretical perspective that can relate to this article would have to be the deterrence theory. This deterrence theory is related to crime. Essentially this theory says that people think about committing a crime before they actually “commit” to doing one. What do they think about? Well they think carefully about the pros and cons or the cost and benefits of the crime. So if someone knows that stealing money from a gas station will get them through the next month, they are more tempted to engage that idea. However, if they know that they will face a lot of prison time for stealing the money and getting caught doing so then they would begin to doubt those actions.
The deterrence theory relates to the news media article. According to the article “Corrections Officer Kills Man During Attempted Robbery in Queens” by Tatiana Schlossberg, it states, “ An armed man who demanded that a group of five riders hand over the keys to their motorcycles… according to the police” (Schlossberg 2015). There is really no way of telling why the man chose to rob these motorcyclists but one can assume that he was financially troubled and needed money. If in fact the man was in need of money, he probably believed that the benefits of taking the motorcycles would result in some quick cash if he were able to sell them very fast. This probably outweighed the consequence of being arrested. Unfortunately, he probably did not even think of the consequence of death because he was armed and had the “upper hand.” This is why the deterrence theory relates to this article because a crime was weighed on a scale of costs and benefits and it happened to tip towards benefits. For this reason, the thinking stage of the crime became the “doing” stage of crime.
A sociological perspective that relates to this article would be racism. Racism relates to this article because although it does not directly say it, the man that attempted to rob the bikers could have been black. We live in a society where if a crime is committed then it must have been a black male. It also does not help that the article states that, “the man had over 50 arrests prior to him being shot during a robbery attempt” ( Schlossberg 2015).This shows how the media can warps our perspective on who commits crime without stating their race or gender.