An Email to a friend – on “respect”

Old C.,

You might have named the right word, which is, of course, "respect".
While social discriminations of some kinds are still rampant in this society, how could people who believe they are superior respect those they think inferior? Many local born residents and early immigrants still despise those uneducated new immigrants from the mainland.
The sense and value of respect for any other individual may take centuries of good education to establish.

What that desperate mother needed most was immediate mental support from the relevant professionals, say, competent psychiatrists and social workers. These are the "first-aid" that could have prevented the fatal tragedy from happening. That poor mother definitely got none of these adequately. How could she enjoy the "respect" you mentioned, which would only come after a good universal education has been provided for the population?

It could quite be out of the question looking back to the poor old days without taking into consideration the social context.
Back then poor families like ours belonged to the majority. Given a small shanty on the hillside without running water and always threatened by fire and rain, inadequate food with low nutritive value, and minimal clothing for barely getting through the cold seasons, an utterly poor family could struggle through all those difficult days, with incentives and hope.
Now our society has evolved to a state that the majority are no longer living in poverty. Most who have got wealthy are even struggling harder still to get even wealthier.
Yet the poor are still around and have since become the minority, living in a society in which wealth is almost the only index of individual capability, money is the totem for many, and being poor is always equal to being incapable, or even worthless. Such a social atmosphere brings about frustrations and despair.
Although one may not be as poor as the poorest in the poor old days, and the hardships of everyday life could be eased a bit by means of social welfare, the mental stress arises is much more unbearable than decades ago.
A recently withdrawn TV advertisement placed by a bank targeting the middle class even says that the upbringing of a child costs almost four million dollars. Being exposed to such a kind of opinion believed romantically by many who are well-off, I wonder what damage could be done to the self-esteem of an unemployed uneducated mother of two with a disabled husband.