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The Many Lives of the “Culture of Poverty”

When Paul Ryan said,

…the tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and there so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with…”

another battle in the long racially coded ideological war over who is deserving and not deserving of being included as fully “American” was played out in Congress and in the media. It was fought on ground that is all to familiar, with weapons that have enjoyed only … Read more “The Many Lives of the “Culture of Poverty””

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A Rising Tide or a Flood?

Visiting New Orleans has me thinking a lot about cross-racial solidarity among people of color. New Orleans, one of the Blackest cities in the country, is also home to one of the largest Vietnamese-American communities in the U.S.  That the mainly working class Asian immigrant communities here are increasingly well organized gives me hope. But the color line in the Deep South is so brightly drawn, and the penalty for being on the down side of unjust racial power relations is so steep, that I find myself struggling to remain optimistic.

My worry brings to mind that old saying, “a … Read more “A Rising Tide or a Flood?”