Tag: poverty

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The Deserving Poor

This picture in the of a resident of publicly subsidized housing in New Orleans playing with an ipad sparked a hailstorm of responses. Among the most generous of them was this one,

“Not to rush to comment. I hope this is nothing more than someone gave him the iPad as a gift and he is using it for educational means or just playing games … I hope I am not over thinking this. I am not prejudice (sic) — this just did not look right.”

Putting aside the speaker’s imaginings of what the child could be doing with the ipad … Read more “The Deserving Poor”

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We All Live On Food Stamps

Last week’s Congressional proposal to significantly cut the food stamps program has upped the volume on the debate over the role of government in ending hunger in America. Sadly, while there is much to talk about, most of what’s being said on the issue by politicians is, frankly, dumb, and overlooks the broad, society-wide implications of cutting food stamps.

Among the most idiotic of rants against the program came from Arizona GOP Congressional candidate Gabriela Saucedo Mercer who posted the following on her Facebook page:

Can I get a WTF?

But since Saucedo Mercer is just a candidate, I went … Read more “We All Live On Food Stamps”

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Blinkered By Race

No, I don’t mean car blinkers. I’m referring to the kind of blinkers that are used to keep race horses looking straight ahead at the jockey’s goal while blinding them to the distractions on either side.

Racism blinkers us. It imposes a kind of tunnel vision, causing social problems to appear to be related to differences in race and culture (and not racism), while blinding us to the common roots of many of our problems.

The study conducted by the Pew Research Center on Asian Americans that I wrote about in my last post is a good example. In it, … Read more “Blinkered By Race”