Word: underclass
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...birth of this strange, violent, misfit child into a "normal" family is Lessing's way of observing that the middle-class is responsible for the existence of the underclass and must accept responsibilty for its behavior, whether brutal or apathetic. Savagery, according to Lessing, is a direct result of the selfishness and blindess of middle class existence. By choosing not to involve themselves in the social changes of their era, David and Harriet are guilty of an attempt to ignore the imperative for those changes...
...astute critic of a sedentary society that pretends to be perplexed by the problems of its underclass, Lessing offers a message that is both progressive and reactionary. Dorothy emerges as the hero, but she is a throwback to a time when women and the lower classes were, if anything, worse off. Lessing's depiction of the post-feminist world of the 1970s offers the vision of a grand-mother, rather than that of a young crusader. Lessing's nostalgic proposal looks backwards and is, ultimately, no proposal...
...Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass and Public Policy...
Discussions of the underclass in the 1970s and 1980s tended to frame the issues in individualistic terms, blaming the plight of the underclass on individual shortcomings, such as lack of motivation or bad attitudes toward work. This "culture of poverty" thesis achieved widespread acceptance in a country which has long believed that poverty begins at home, and became the cornerstone of the Black neoconservative critique of the welfare system. Theorists such as Kennedy School Professor Glenn Loury and Thomas Sowell denounced welfare for reinforcing the deviant behavior patterns of the inner-city poor, which is largely Black...
...statistics are repeated with a numbing frequency, but Wilson contends that because the underclass is overwhelmingly Black, such statistics tend to reinforce racial stereotypes, again focusing attention on individual characterisitcs instead of the deterioration of the ghetto community strucuture. His task is to break through that impediment and to show the structural basis for urban poverty...