Understanding of Poverty

When playing musical chairs, i feel that it was a little easier to understand what poverty is like. The 1st version of musical chairs was a normal version of musical chairs and although just a game, it gave me the perspective that in America, people have to fight each other to get what they need to survive. When they needed to get to a chair quickly, people would do anything possible to get to the chairs such as jump over them or push people out of the way in order to fend for themselves. This signifies how in the work place or in life in general, we have a system where the strong and "cunning" people who know how to play dirty and manipulate will prosper. Some people were very into the game, but they wanted to be sure they didn't hurt anyone by pushing them out of the way and even some of those people knew that they could not fight certain people for a seat because they would lose. This, to me, signifies how some people in the workplace try to play fair and worry about the well-being of others and this of course led them to get stepped on and thrown out of the game which can only tell us that niceties and fairness can only get you so far in America which turns out to be not that far at all. The last category of people were the people who were just too tired to take part in the game. These people either sat on the sides and watched or played the game, but walked really slowly around the circle and when it came to finding a seat, they would walk to the nearest seat and if they couldn't find one then they would just sit out. This represented those in America who are too lazy or just don't see the point in working so they give up which eventually leads to poverty. This isn't always the case of course. There are always people who are hurt and can't work or too old or something, but in this case we just had lazy people because no one was hurt or too old to play the game. Yet there are people who in the beginning of the game tried to say "my leg hurts" or "I cant play I'm sick" which then gives us an example of those who pretend to be sick in order to not do any work which happens a lot in America.

While playing the second simulation of musical chairs, people started playing like normal, but then we started to see a change when it came to our classmates owning the chairs. Everyone was playing like normal and then some people started to own chairs and the students who were in the "owned" chairs got kicked out of the game. As the amount of owned chairs increased, the people playing decreased. There were a few ways that people stopped playing the game. Some people tried really hard to stay in the game and get empty chairs which led to these few people fighting over the spots and those who played "dirtier" were able to get a chair and those who were fair and played to everyone's benefit got kicked out because they couldn't keep up with those around them. Once people understood how the game worked, there were people who just decided there was no point in trying because they knew that in the end, the owners of the chairs would just take them away. The people who knew they owned chairs walked around without a care and knew that they were safe and wouldn't have to worry about fighting anyone for a chair. It was to the point where some of the people walked around the circle texting and walking slowly because they knew that they wouldn't have to fight anyone because they owned so many chairs. In the end though, no one could win because the people who owned chairs would never give them up and there was never 1 chair left because all the owners of the chairs would always be able to sit.

Thinking about this, we can relate it to America perfectly. In terms of people giving up on the game, we see in America all the time how we just feel defeated and give up. We see things that are corrupt about our government and people and laws yet many of us just sit down and say this is our world there's nothing we can do to change it because what authority says goes. So we all just sit back and let those in power make living conditions worse for us because they don't know what it's like and frankly I feel they don't really care. They know that they have enough to support themselves and whatever family they have that they need to care for and that's it. We as Americans feel angry and upset, but we sit back and say there's nothing we can do and so nothing will ever get changed. The people who are on top and own everything sit back and don't do much because they know they don't have to and they let the "lesser people" fight over wealth and such. Those who see how the game is played give up and then if conditions are as bad as they truly seem end up in poverty. Yet there are those who see how the game is played and decide to try and fight the system. These people see those in charge and fight all they can to try and have conditions changed and sometimes it works and sometimes not.

From all of this information I can see that there is a valid argument in saying that there aren't enough chairs because it is true that there aren't and this isn't poor people's part because wealth is a lot of times inherited or stolen, but there are also ways to create your own wealth and it is hard, but it is the fault of those who don't even try that they are poor. If I think about the other chair simulation, I can see how the wealth is not evenly distributed. 1 person had a lot of chairs and then further down the line, the amount of chairs that people owned git significantly lower. Some people had to share chairs. Then towards the end of the line, people were piled up on 2-.5 chairs. On the last chair they were only allowed half of the chair yet there were still a lot of people for that half a chair. This signified how little wealth there is for the poorer people to share and this isn't the poor people's fault, but if they don't fight for it then it becomes there fault.

Amanda did an interesting thing that could be seen as a poor person fighting for wealth. When Andy was sitting across 4 chairs and he got up to talk, Amanda said "this is bullshit I'm gonna be the rich person" and took his chairs. Although it is NEVER this easy in real life, her actions were valid. When Andy got careless and left his chairs, Amanda took over which is essentially what happens a lot in our society even if it's not between the two extremes of really really rich and really really poor. Americans steal and fight their way to better possessions except for when it really matters because those people who were a lot more poor than Amanda didn't think to steal anyone else's chair. This makes it people's fault that they are poor.