Week 13 Day Two

Today's online class assignment was a blog post....the last one. I chose to assign the Gordon Parks essay called Flavio's Home. It is one of my favorite pieces in The Longman Reader. Gordon Parks was not only a journalist, but a photographer as well. I found a picture of Flavio on the internet. Here it is.

Here are the directions to the post. The students had to respond to two questions.


This is a photo taken by Gordon Parks of Flavio. This picture says it all. In two paragraphs summarize the essay by Gordon Parks entitled Flavio's Home and then write a personal response to the essay.
2. The problem of poverty has provoked a wide array of proposed solutions. One controversial proposal argues that the government should pay poor women financial incentives to use birth control. Argue for or against this proposal, state at least two reasons with supporting evidence. Be sure and cite any sources you use.

There were many excellent response to the post. Below is Valerie's post.

"Creating Hope and Opportunity in Haiti for Extremely Poor Women and Their Families." BRAC Blog. Web. 15 Apr. 2010. .

1. The essay by Gordon Parks entitled Flavio's Home is about him visiting a favela in Brazil named Catacumba and meets a 12 year old boy named Flavio de Silva who changes his life. Parks visits this favela to interview a father with a family who is in poverty. They interviewed what he is going through and his beliefs on his situation. During their time there, they meet the 12 year old boy, Flavio, and they had a feeling that this boy would have a better story than any other father, because his legs were like sticks that were just screwed into his ankles. Parks and his partner visited Flavio's family and realized that Flavio's health was really bad. They took him to the clinic to try to get a doctor to help him but Flavio had sypmtoms of bronchial asthma, malnutrition and tuberculosis, which didn't give him much longer to live.

In my opinion, poverty is probably the saddest thing in the world. It breaks my heart to hear about a family like Flavio's with barely any food and with sick siblings. Sometimes I wish I could save them all at the same time, but it is very hard. People do not realize what they take for granted. People think they need new clothes every week, new shoes, their nails and hair done, and etc. But they do not realize that there are people out there who need food and shelter to survive. I wish people all around the world could help end poverty so that there would be less families like Flavio's.


2. I understand that the problem of poverty has provoked a wide array of proposed solutions and that one controversial proposal argues that the government should pay poor women financial incentives to use birth control, but I disagree with this solution. I do not think it is right that women are not allowed to have as many kids as they want. It is their body, and they should be able to do whatever they want with it. I read in an article that "The Women's Health & Justice Initiative and the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic condemn Representative John LaBruzzo's recent legislative plans to pay poor women to get sterilized and reward rich, educated people to have children. The sterilization policy currently being advocated by Representative LaBruzzo is a blatant form of reproductive violence and population control policies of blame and disenfranchisement, rooted in this country's long and continual history of eugenics." How can people do this to humanity? These people seem like people who would be for abortion. This is very wrong.


"A Feminist Response to LaBruzzo's Sterilization Plan
A Katrina Reader." Challenging White Supremacy Workshop Home Page. Web. 15 Apr. 2010. .