Word: underclass
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From its start in the cauldron of New York City's underclass, rap music's jolting energy and angry messages have been hostile to many outsiders, but to none more so than women. In too many rap lyrics, women are cast as pliant toys or conniving Delilahs. The male rappers who weave this image -- among them Ice Cube, Ice-T, Too Short and the Geto Boys -- spin exaggerated tales of salaciousness and violence, portraying themselves as potent, swashbuckling urban heroes. Since a macho image is a proven formula for success, rap producers were reluctant to sign female rappers. The music...
...riot illuminates long-simmering hostilities between Washington's Latino underclass and the black power structure. Many African-American residents were shocked to learn that Hispanics have a list of grievances against them that mimic black complaints about discrimination by whites. Hispanics complain that they hold only 1% of the jobs in local government though they constitute 5% of the population. They also say they are routinely harassed by the mostly black police force...
...prospects, but they all have one thing in common: their mothers repeatedly took crack cocaine, often in combination with other drugs, during pregnancy. That makes them part of a tragic generation of American youngsters -- a generation unfairly branded by some as "children of the damned" or a "biologic underclass." More often, they are simply called crack kids. A few have severe physical deformities from which they will never recover. In others the damage can be more subtle, showing up as behavioral aberrations that may sabotage their schooling and social development. Many of these children look and act like other kids...
...less notice than the first, until the nation woke to find itself transformed. By the time their numbers had tapered off, around 1970, many of the travelers were embarked upon another journey -- up the ladder of class advancement. But almost as many were rattling in the dungeons of the underclass, causing reverberations throughout American life...
Lemann concludes by arguing against the conservative truism that federal antipoverty programs are doomed to failure -- and by wondering how long it will be before the national will to defeat poverty can be summoned again. "In American life," he writes, "the underclass is stuck in the antechamber where policy issues rest until they become political crusades." Perhaps someday the great trek northward will at least have a monument like the one that stands at Ellis Island to commemorate the first great migration. Meanwhile, The Promised Land is an important cornerstone in the effort to understand why so many travelers...