In the clip, there was only a brief look at the six youths getting on a train. An admittedly disgusting train, but still just a train. We learned that most of the people on the train were incapable of rising above their positions in life, not because of personal faults, but because they did not have the money. They did not have the money to feed themselves, let alone pay for education.
It reminds me of one of the passages in "Travels of a T-shirt". The laborers in that bok worked long hours, hours that did not allow for time to study, and the pay was pitifully little, far too little to pay for more than the barest essentials. Like those workers on the train, they could not rise above their station in life, even if they had wanted to. Even an extra hour of work, an extra diligent attention on needle and thread would not earn enough money for one to rise to a higher status. There is, in short, no hope for these workers to become 'better'. They're too focused on actual survival for them to think of the future.
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It's depressing isn't it? I am touched by your response. You really seem to get it on an emotional level. That takes a lot of inner strength-- to allow yourself to feel another's pain.
I do think the pitfall sometimes with this kind of analysis is that we forget that even the economically disenfranchised have dignity, joy (remember the singing on the train?) wisdom and inner strength too-- that there is much to be learned from them.
--Ms. Sheilah
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