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USA
| Metro Urban Studies Term
3
of 4 reflections
The
experience from MUST that challenged and
transformed my thinking about issues of
poverty was a class seminar with two amazing
women. These women were community members,
advocates for welfare recipients, and
“welfare mothers” themselves.
Listening to their presentation was staggering.
They shared with us their life experiences,
let us ask tough questions (the ones you’re
afraid to ask, but always wanted to!),
and gave us their opinions. As artists,
women, mothers, and musicians, they portrayed
welfare in a new light. Their knowledge
of social policy and discrimination was
impressive. After meeting them and hearing
about their lives, I was able to put a
human face on poverty and that changed
everything. To see such amazing people
being “cut down” by society
was maddening. Right then and there, I
understood poverty more clearly than I
ever had before, in the sense that I could
couple human storytelling with political
materials we learned in class. That synthesis
would not have happened in a traditional
classroom.
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