Jose Estrada- Kester

"...state-sponsored welfare robs the rich of the opportunity for spiritual growth provided by individual acts of philanthropy."

I think this quote is what struck me the most. I understand that yes, this country may have a problem with are welfare funding system because people take advantage of it; but I also think to say that our welfare is the reason as to why the rich have not been more generous in their efforts of helping the poor is complete crap. I feel quotes like these and also the generalization of people who are on welfare are a HUGE problem as to why community engagement is so hard to transverse different classes. I believe that human beings, are beings of imitation. So the more people generalize a particular group in society, the more the community being generalized is going to generalize right back and so on. If the rich really wished to make extreme hefty contributions to our poorer communities I believe we would have seen it by now. Many times I go back home, or back to my home schools, and see the lack of essential resources needed to make a person feel good about ones own community; to actually take pride in beautiful neighborhood. So, if you can't take pride in a nice neighborhood you begin to take pride in the ugly parts of the neighborhood, and that is both an asset and a problem. It makes me feel infuriated, especially after reading a quote like that.

While reading some of these discussions on poverty, I hate the fact how people think they can figure it out as if it were some sort of math equation. Poverty is not a moral choice nor are the people within it "malleable subjects." Poverty is a circumstance. A person is a person. To hell with their social status.Their environment is their environment. A person is a human being first, and is poor/problematic second. The reason I wear my clothes slightly baggy is not some form of rebellious act or need to put an image. All it is, is an expression of the community I come from. At my middle school and high school the big clothes where worn by the cool kids so like any natural teen I followed in those foot steps. We spoke and did things differently then a student who did things at Beverly Hills High School who probably grew up with completely different notions as to what was cool. Now say if that student from Beverly Hills came over to my school, immediately there would be a wall of difference between us. Judging of one community on another from both sides. And this is where community engagement comes in to play. I feel that we can accomplish community engagement, but the teacher/foreigner needs to come in with an open-mind and a willingness to accept that he or she must be an outsider before they can become a member within that community. They also must be willing to become the minority, and understand that there power no longer lies with status quo or who has the nicest car but with the ability to respect a person as an equal no matter what circumstances.