I guess “the new poor” is better than “the underclass”. But just as no one who is considered a member of “the underclass” would actually claim the moniker, I’m not sure how many people would claim being part of “the new poor” either. Unfortunately though, unlike “the underclass”–whose defining traits slip and slide from scholar to scholar–the makeup of the new poor is remarkably clear. Last week I wrote about the bank robber who got off light?
He’s part of the new poor.
Note in the article how stable Detroit’s needs are through the ongoing crisis. It’s because they hit the ceiling long ago. The numbers in the surrounding suburbs are going to rise, the demand for services are going to skyrocket. And given that the state can’t provide these services because their coffers are low as well, what we’re looking at are the components for a significant shift in ideas about government. In some ways it is unfortunate that whites have to suffer for people to begin to think maybe poverty isn’t solely the consequence of individual failures.
The same system [racism] preys on white Americans too; the difference is that they generally possess the means to narcotize themselves to its spiritual effects and to benefit from its material effects, although this is becoming less true with each passing day as the gap between the wealthy and the poor relentlessly widens.
The Resurrection: The Business of Racism Revisited
Doc maybe the presidential candidates will strat speaking to the truth,the candidate who resonate with the poverty issue will win.Will Greenburg Kansas,a town destroyed by mother nature similar to New Orleans have the same fate?
Lester,
I agree it’s unfortunate that it always seems to have to affect whites before there is a ‘real problem,’ but it is what it is in this country. Remember we didn’t have a drug problem either until the white kids started overdosing. Didn’t have an AIDS problem until fine upstanding non-gay white folks began developing symptoms.