I thought this week I would address some of the statements made by Paul Ryan on Bill Bennett’s Morning In America radio show on March 12. It is challenging to pick a place to start in regards to what IS wrong with what Ryan had to say about what he claimed to be both the causes and the realities of those who exist under the poverty line. However, I think it is safe to start with a direct quote from Ryan stating that, “Your buddy Charles Murray or Bob Putnam over at Harvard, those guys have written books on this. Which is, we have got this 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 so there’s a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with” (Rep. Paul Ryan, Bill Bennett’s Morning In America” radio show, March 12, 2014) What I essentially got from this was that Paul Ryan is not just blaming poverty on poor people, but he is claiming that within “inner cities” there is a literal culture of human beings (specifically men, according to Ryan) that are “not even thinking about working” and thus are not interested in the “values” and the “culture” of work…. I was mortified. Through this interview on the “Morning in America” radio station, Paul Ryan essentially verbalized what we have acknowledged in this class as one of the major issues with poverty in the United States. This issue is that while the percentage of Americans who live in poverty continues to rise, while funding for government aid continues to get cut, while low income housing continues to disappear, while programs and services continue to change by request of political figures who have never actually experienced poverty, Paul Ryan has decided that it is the sheer culture of “these people” that is perpetuating poverty in America. He created a discourse about poverty and those who exist in poverty that not only blamed the millions of Americans who’s lives are characterized by the realities of living beneath the poverty line, but characterized a culture that “these people” all exist in and thus dictates their desire to not simply just not work, but Ryan goes so far as to suggest that the idea of existing above the poverty line is not even within reach of their psyche. He suggests that “they” are content in “their” poverty and practically suggests that “these people” believe to be above the concept or “culture” of work. To assume that this statement has a racist foundation (or is blatantly racist, depending upon how you chose to view it) is not incorrect. For starters, he referenced a man in his interview who he claims to have “written books”, on this theory of a culture of poverty and men in inner cities choosing not to work. What was interesting about this reference to me was that the man he mentions is Charles Murray… a white nationalist who has used “racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of certain people.”(Southern Poverty Law Center). When later questioned about the racist connotations of the statements made on “Morning in America”, Paul Ryan claimed that race was not at all a part of his message. As quoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “According to Murray, disadvantaged groups are disadvantaged because, on average, they cannot compete with white men, who are intellectually, psychologically and morally superior. Murray advocates the total elimination of the welfare state, affirmative action and the Department of Education, arguing that public policy cannot overcome the innate deficiencies that cause unequal social and educational outcomes.”(Souther Poverty Law Center)… So through my understanding, to reference Charles Murray as a glowing reference suggests that Ryan not only believes the writings of a white nationalist to be a valid form of statistical proof for a “culture of poverty”, but that Ryan is also reading and utilizing white nationalist beliefs in the decision making behind his political stances. As well as that, to blindly reference an entire demographic of people as “from inner cities” does not in any real way help his case, seeing as how that statement, besides being too vague to even be used to designate a particular location, is riddled with an association to people of color. Seeing as how more predominately urbanized areas in the United States (if that is what Ryan is referring to when he says inner cities) are more greatly inhabited by people of color. I was shocked at how a politician could make the conscious choice to reference an entire demographic of people as existing in a “culture of poverty” through what he claims to be as essentially their own doing, and then to never specify who these people are, but simply states that they are from “inner cities”. Ryan literally uses this essentially undefined “group of people” to justify his desire to get rid of the social safety net programs used in the United States that are currently assisting over 90% of people in America! As we have been discussing in this class there is an American discourse about poverty that aims to blame the individual. The reality of the current state of poverty in the U.S. as many (not white nationalist) authors, researchers, etc. have documented, is that more people exist in poverty than not. Poverty is not, and has not been a “personal problem or implication” for poor people, because we exist in a society where the majority is poor. The more our politicians continue to ignore the issue of poverty as lived experiences of a majority of the American people, the longer it is going to take for it to be properly addressed in the future. The further we cut funding for government based aid and the further we continue to push away and ignore the needs of “these people”(as put by Ryan), the longer and harder it is going to be once politicians like Ryan finally realize that this issue of poverty is too large to be swept under the rug anymore. Beyond the intrinsic racism that riddled the statements made on March 12, besides the overwhelming ignorance and injustice that is a politician referencing a white nationalist as his source of evidence for a political claim against the American people, and besides the fact that he at no point took responsibility for the role of policy or programs put in place by politicians like himself as a cause of poverty, Ryan’s theory of a “poverty culture” and of men who “don’t think about work” just simply is untrue. Since we have learned to view poverty as a structural problem through or readings and discussion in this class, the fact that Ryan was unwilling to attribute any of the ways in which government aid, policies, and programs have not been working to help get poor people out of poverty, but instead blames the people as failing to utilize these programs correctly proves how this discourse that is created by particular politicians is damaging not just our discourse about the American majority who exist in poverty, but how it is changing our mindsets as a society. Ryan’s statements insinuate that we have reached a time in the history of America where the systems don’t fail the people but the people fail the systems. If the policies aren’t making a difference, then they need to be changed. Welfare queen ideologies and blaming poor people as “taking advantage of the system” have both been statistically disproved and cannot continue to be the way that the people who are supposed to be dealing with the issues facing the American people can continue to sidestep having to make any real change. I am glad that I am taking this class, because I can confidently say that I have an accurate understanding of poverty in way that it seems even some politicians and policy makers do not.
References:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/paul-ryan-inner-cities_n_4949165.html
It’s ironic because I remember during the 2012 presidential campaign how Paul Ryan would use the story of his mother escaping poverty as an anecdote. He used to say how she used the services and rose up from the bottom and because of this, she “lived the American Dream.” It was okay for his mother to use government services in order to support her life, but according to Paul Ryan no one else should have that safety net on account of some Republican ideal about everyone fending for themselves in a market system.