Word: underclasses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
With so much drug-related horror in the inner cities, it is easy to assume that crack is an exclusively underclass problem. Not so. "I see Key Club members and honor-society members destroyed by crack," says Jeanne Howard of the state attorney's office in Palm Beach County, Fla. There is a terrible symbiosis between the wealthy addicts and the inner-city dealers. Privileged kids who venture into the ghetto to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on crack are largely responsible for the booming drug business...
Contact with people like the Harvard tutors is particularly important for many prisoners because they come from a violent background in which "the street" is home and "officers" are the enemy. Coming from the underclass, such individuals often feel they have no real opportunity to attain conventional standards of success or happiness, writes Rhodes scholar Jay MacLeod '83-'84, who was a PBH officer during his undergraduate years. In his book on disadvantaged Boston-area youth, Ain't No Makin' It, MacLeod argues that such hopelessness leaves people disconnected from mainstream society. Inmates agree, saying they feel shunned and forgotten...