At 11:01 AM 4/27/2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>I wouldn't use the word underclass - way too ugly and stigmatizing for me.
>But there is a tendency among some leftists to idealize the actually
>existing working class - and the poor on a global scale. I'd love to hear
>an answer to this question.
>
>Doug
I'm heading to the library. Could you guys send me refs to the authors who do this? Thanks!
BTW, when it comes to social scientists, they aren't interested in whether their lives or cultures are good or bad. It's not a question you ask. You want to _explain_ social behavior, institutions and practices. Or, you want to _understand_. Or possibly both -- I'm not of the either/or persuasion, sexually or social theoretically. *grin*
But make judgements as to whether they are good or bad? This isn't what interests them. See, for instance, Lynn Haney's marvelous piece in ASA some years back, "Home Boys, Babies, and Men in Suits." No feminist making excuses for poor black women there. Goshes.
I don't particularly think well-heeled managers and professionals who've been out of work for a long time are people to feel sorry for. Oh. Boo Hoo. You might have to sell your second home to get by another year? But, I let all that go and try to understand who they are, how their unemployment feels to them and why they are feeling miserable without something meaningful to do with their lives, etc.
Judith Stacey, in Brave New Families, wonders why the woman she spends years with can be so blind about the men in her life, why she gets into a religion that undermines her feminist leanings, etc. She tries to understand her. Indeed, Stacey saw her on her intial outings into the field as someone very alient to her and possibly even an enemny -- a woman turning to feminism, part of the conservatizing forces in the country in the 80s. She wants to understand: why. She's not there to make a moralizing judgement on their lives.
Have "A little Glass of Rum" for christ sake. Did you get mugged recently or something?
And Wojtek, if you want to make one more sidewipe at me, about a view I don't hold, I'm just going to ignore you, because you aren't listening to me or taking anything I say seriously. If you can't treat me as a human being deserving of respect, then I am not going to waste my time. You can call me all the names you want. The people who were going to believe you, were going to believe you anyway.
Oh, and Chris Kromm doesn't think too highly of your view of the south. He's said that to you in the past. http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2001/2001-January/000230.html
i'm pretty sure you'd lable CK one of the KUA crowd, as you so u nfairly label me and anyone else who disagrees with you. As far as I know, I don't know him very well, he'd find most of your arguments about the south deplorable. (Not to mention empirically untenable WRT voting, support for GW, and class. The reason why it's racism is that, as Dawson said, it substitutes culture--unchanging, incorrigible, ahistorical--for biology. It presumes some monolithic entity--culture--that exists outside of the economic and the political. It ignores contradictions within a culture to focus on only the good or bad.
Rednecks must be bad. He doesn't explain why they are. They just are. He plays on u.su. prejudices about rednecks to get away with saying all kinds of crap. Oh, now we know the real problem. It's not about blackness, as a race or culture. It's about the white rednecks who influenced their culture. Sowell is trying to pretend that the real reasons blacks are bad is beause they picked up redneck culture. Without every explaining what that is, of course, redneck culture is an floating signifier upon which you can hang your fears, fantasies, prejudices, and bigotry -- all without a lick of empirical evidence. There's redneck culture. QED.
The problem is, he has no empirical evidence to back him up. Stats about schools and newspaper circulation mean ZIP. He doesn't explain how blacks picked up redneck culture. He doesn't even explain what that is. Just lets you fantasize. It's a Quilting Point.
At 10:25 AM 4/27/2005, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> > >http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/aic02.htm.
>
>WS:
>High victimization rates are usually swept under the rug by the populist
>relativists claiming that any sub-culture is as good as any other. In this
>case, such practices are particularly disingenuous since victimization
>cannot be blamed on "external factors" as most tribes are self-governed.
Thanks for the gumball, Mickey!
Who said that the American Indians are all living on a reservation? They live everywhere from Alaska to Michigan to New York. I didn't read far enough to get a
From the report: "Victim-offender relationship Among American Indian victims of violence, the offender was more likely to be a stranger than an intimate partner, family member, or acquaintance. Strangers committed 42% of the violent crimes against American Indians during 1992-2001 (table 11). An acquaintance committed about 1 in 3 of the violent victimizations against American Indians. About 1 in 5 violent victimizations among American Indians involved an offender who was an intimate or family member of the victim.
Race of offender
White or black offenders committed 88% of all violent victimizations, 1992- 2001 (table 12). Victims identified Asians or American Indians — classified as other race by NCVS — as the offender in 13% of the violent acts."
"A third of American Indians murdered by an acquaintance or relative were killed by a member of a different race. About half of the American Indians murdered by a stranger were killed by a white; a quarter by a black offender."
"Among arrestees of all ages, the violent crime arrest rate for American Indians (159 per 100,000) was similar to the rate for all races (152 per 100,000). Compared to all races, American Indians were less likely (16 to 27 arrests per 100,000) to be arrested for robbery but more likely (131 to 116) to be arrested for aggravated assault."
Mike:
At 07:46 AM 4/27/2005, Mike Ballard wrote:
>Thanks Kelly! It's ALSO nice when the people you like, like you too.
>;P
>I wish you had time to write a novel. IMO, you're the Americans'
>answer to Alice Munro.
>
>Cheers,
>Mike B)
You said that to me offlist and I never got back to you. I was so dumbfounded by the thought, I didn't know what to say. I can safely say that it hasn't occured to me, ever, to be a writer. A hack, sure. But a writer? Like write novels and stuff? Mike, you have no idea how weird that was to hear if only because I don't have time to put effort into my ramblings. Plus, when it comes to editing my own stuff. Fuggedaboudit. I can't see a typho on a scream to sabe my lift. I've since learned from freelance editors, that my slippages are not so weird at all and there are other people who can describe how we make those slips--the way our brain thinks forward and backward more quickly than we can type (and I type fast, so my brain's a mess! :) So, i just whip stuff off and hit send, nine times out of ten .... wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!
So I just looked up Alice Munro. FIRST of all, what a nifty looking woman. In my dotage, I'm going to have a hat like that, only floppier. And I'm going to wear it in my garden.
As she describes her writing, NOW I can see what you mean. Love it! It's exactly what I do! I think of stuff, start rambling, I get someplace weird, but it all makes sense to me, and I hit send.
http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/read/goodwoman/munro.html