Last Wednesday, on October 5, 2011, the weekly Times Talk was led by history and philosophy professor, David Barber, discussing poverty in the U.S.
The meeting began with Barber presenting statistics of poverty, revealing a large gap between the small percent of wealthy and the large percent of poor. Barber believes that this “structure problem” in society can be the source of many of Americans’ problems.
“You cannot live in a society that [is] unequal without that affecting the education of the citizenry, [or] the social relations within society. So for example, a society in which there’s a lot of poor people is going to be a society in which there is a lot of crime. But where do you fix the blame for that? You can try to stop the crime by stopping the criminal, but the only way to really stop the criminal is by creating a society where everybody has access to what they need,” Barber said.
The statistics also showed the difference in poverty among different ethnicities, revealing even more inequality.
“Over a quarter of the African American population in this country is in poverty. Where as, about ten percent of the white population is in poverty. These [African Americans] are the descendants of the people who built this country and are in poverty. They were in poverty building this country; this country was built on their backs, and their descendants are still poor,” Barber said.
Also, Barber brought up health insurance, with relevant statistics presented.
“Right now, we have more people without health insurance in this country than we did a year and half ago, when the health care reform went in, and the health care reform is supposed to address that,” Barber said.
With the revelation of all this information, people at Times Talk had much to discuss, delving into the problems that Americans have in relation to economics and poverty.
“I was hoping for a more practical conversation than what we had. I think there was some effort at making that practical conversation, but you know, it’s good that people vented. I always get wary when the blame goes to the people. … I don’t blame people for being in debt; I think the source of the problem is the structure of our society, which has a very small minority very, very rich, and 60 percent of the population falling deeper and deeper into debt every year. That’s a structural problem; that has nothing to do with individual choice,” Barber said.
Barber also said that there are certain things that Americans should be aware of when it comes to poverty.
“We live in a very cruel society. This is a society where so many children don’t have any kind of chance at all, and I don’t know about you but it hurts me to think about that. … I don’t know how you can live in a society that has so much suffering and put on a happy face, unless you’re going to be in denial. And if you are in denial, that happy face that you put on is still not really happy. … I suspect that all of us would like to see everybody to be able to live a life in which they develop themselves to their fullest capacity. And it would be beneficial to all of us, because we would come at each other as equals and that kind of society is a society in which you could really have relationships between people that are open and generous,” Barber said.
