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Our insistence on equating "poor" with "black" has undermined the success of anti-poverty programs.
By: Zaheer Ali
Recent discussions of poverty have revealed themselves to be, in fact, coded conversations about race. When Newt Gingrich talks about poor kids having no work ethic and Donald Trump agrees, they discuss poor kids interchangeably with black or inner-city youths.
For years politicians, policy wonks and others have used "disadvantaged," "underprivileged," "inner-city," "urban" and "poor" as code words for black and brown people.
I do agree that poor white children are being overlooked in a big way. Maybe moreso than any other group. I'm down with doing something about that....so long as it's a workable and viable idea. I can spare a few tax dollars.
I do agree that poor white children are being overlooked in a big way. Maybe moreso than any other group. I'm down with doing something about that....so long as it's a workable and viable idea. I can spare a few tax dollars.
Hi DD,
I've been saying it for years. I call them the "The Invisibles". Because they are certainly forgotten.
I've been saying it for years. I call them the "The Invisibles". Because they are certainly forgotten.
I live in a fairly rural county in Southern Arizona...i know they exist and there are a hell of a lot of them in this town alone. Many of them went to school with my son. Many of them suffer with serious drug problems, family problems, and low expectations.
So yea...they are a rather large, invisible group that no one thinks about. But i do.
I do agree that poor white children are being overlooked in a big way. Maybe moreso than any other group. I'm down with doing something about that....so long as it's a workable and viable idea. I can spare a few tax dollars.
Us middle class whites are being overlooked as well. I live in the City of Boston and an inordinate amount of my property tax money goes to the poorer sections. Heck even police response in my area is slower due to more pressing issues in the 'hood.
What about the poor white, Hispanic, or Asian kids? I've lived in towns where the stereotypical family in poverty was white and descended from generations of Americans that had been in the country long enough to not have much ethnic identity. Yet these white American children in poverty were susceptible to the same things that afflict inner-city children and families--and plenty of them were on welfare, had little luck at finding work, a high incidence of drug usage and drug selling in the community, and so on... Yet no one was telling them in Wall Street Journal editorials that they had to work harder to succeed and move out of this legacy of poverty.
Our insistence on equating "poor" with "black" has undermined the success of anti-poverty programs.
This is another good example of how liberal racism in the media undermines most, if not all, social programs. The liberal media ALWAYS shows poor starving black children on TV and such, which warps people's perception of what poor people look like.
When was the last time anybody in the media reported on the culture of poverty and hopelessness that plagues poor white people in the Appalachians? When will rich, liberal, white celebrities help these folk out?
I live in a fairly rural county in Southern Arizona...i know they exist and there are a hell of a lot of them in this town alone. Many of them went to school with my son. Many of them suffer with serious drug problems, family problems, and low expectations.
So yea...they are a rather large, invisible group that no one thinks about. But i do.
And before anyone asks, I am black and I do care about whites. I know that's not the thing to say around here.
I've always thought, if we make the citizens of this country strong, than the country as a whole will be strong. People are so engulfed with their own agenda and ideologies and "Pro my own group", things become lopsided and one group ends up benefiting more than others, when all citizens of this country should benefit from the resources this country has to offer.
Us middle class whites are being overlooked as well. I live in the City of Boston and an inordinate amount of my property tax money goes to the poorer sections. Heck even police response in my area is slower due to more pressing issues in the 'hood.
Well, i'm a middle to upper middle class black man, and i'm not getting any sympathy either. There is a neighborhood about half a mile from me that has struggled with a fairly decent sized, mostly white poor population for decades. The drugs, spousal abuse, alcoholism, unemployment, and everything that goes with it is astounding.
Still though, who am i to complain? Three cops live on my street and i can't get a cop over here in a decent amount of time either. Most times i have to answer a bevy of questions just to satisfy the dispatcher to the point where she thinks it's serious enough to send a cop. LOL...i mean..it is what it is.
Look..some of us will do ok in life, and some won't. Every society is that way. It's nothing to get mad or frustrated about....you just accept it and keep it moving.
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