I thought this week I would address some of the statements made by Paul Ryan on Bill Bennett\u2019s Morning In America radio show on March 12. \u00a0It 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, \u201cYour 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\u2019s a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with\u201d (Rep. Paul Ryan, Bill Bennett\u2019s Morning In America\u201d 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 \u201cinner cities\u201d there is a literal culture of human beings (specifically men, according to Ryan) that are \u201cnot even thinking about working\u201d and thus are not interested in the \u201cvalues\u201d and the \u201cculture\u201d of work\u2026. I was mortified. Through this interview on the \u201cMorning in America\u201d 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 \u201cthese people\u201d 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\u2019s lives are characterized by the realities of living beneath the poverty line, but characterized a culture that \u201cthese people\u201d 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 \u201cthey\u201d are content in \u201ctheir\u201d poverty and practically suggests that \u201cthese people\u201d believe to be above the concept or \u201cculture\u201d of work. \u00a0\u00a0To 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 \u201cwritten books\u201d, 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\u2026 a white nationalist who has used \u201cracist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of certain people.\u201d(Southern Poverty Law Center). \u00a0When later questioned about the racist connotations of the statements made on \u201cMorning in America\u201d, Paul Ryan claimed that race was not at all a part of his message. As quoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, \u201cAccording 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.\u201d(Souther Poverty Law Center)\u2026 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 \u201cculture of poverty\u201d, 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 \u201cfrom inner cities\u201d 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 \u201cculture of poverty\u201d 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 \u201cinner cities\u201d. Ryan literally uses this essentially undefined \u201cgroup of people\u201d 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.\u00a0 Poverty is not, and has not been a \u201cpersonal problem or implication\u201d 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 \u201cthese people\u201d(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\u2019s theory of a \u201cpoverty culture\u201d and of men who \u201cdon\u2019t think about work\u201d 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\u2019s statements insinuate that we have reached a time in the history of America where the systems don\u2019t 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 \u201ctaking advantage of the system\u201d 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. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n
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http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/03\/12\/paul-ryan-inner-cities_n_4949165.html<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/03\/12\/1284169\/-Paul-Ryan-references-White-Supremacist-in-Inner-City-Men-too-Lazy-to-Work-comment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I thought this week I would address some of the statements made by Paul Ryan on Bill Bennett\u2019s Morning In America radio show on March 12. \u00a0It 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 … Continue reading Paul Ryan’s Contribution to the discourse about poverty in the United States.<\/span>