When candidates for President of the United States choose to play to racial stereotypes, it does little to educate and improve race relations among a growing ethnically diverse electorate. The travesty and tragedy of resorting to using distorted, divisive and derogatory languages and images to describe a whole group of people have untold, and unfortunately, lasting consequences.
Republican Candidate Newt Gingrich’s description of poor children is one of those tragic travesties. Gingrich said recently, “Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it’s illegal.”
At the end of this column, I offer Mr. Gingrich a characterization of rich children. It would be great to hear his response. Who does he think the characterization describe?
No in his description of poor children, Gingrich did not use the words black children or Hispanic children. But as you heard or read his comment, did poor white children immediately come to mind?
When scholars, politicians, and pundits normally refer to the poor in America, who are they talking about?
But the harm does not stop there. Gingrich would have you to believe that ALL poor people are lazy; no one works in neighborhood after neighborhood; and those that do only sell drugs? He, in one statement, dismisses ALL of the working poor adults, many of them working two jobs to support their families as well as doing what they can to give their children a good future.
Has he ever heard of the working poor – black, white, Hispanics, and other ethnicities? He does not have to look very far into the backgrounds of black leaders from his own party. Does he know anything about Colin Powell? What about the parents of Herman Cain?
Many blacks who earned a good living being laborers, janitors, garbage workers, etc. and who built middle class lives, came from poor families, poor neighborhoods. Graduates from college, who become teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and yes politicians, have more often than not come from poor families and neighborhoods.
Newt Gingrich also forgot that the vast majority of poor people in this country are white. So is he also calling poor whites, lazy with children who never see them go to work unless it is to sell drugs?
An informed electorate is a powerful electorate. The public should not let Newt Gingrich or any other candidate paint a great portion of the American population with a false a divisive broad brush.
Yes, many poor children – whites, blacks, Hispanics, and others – have parents who do not have full time jobs or a good education. But the reasons go far beyond them happening to be poor and choosing to live the “Life of Riley.” Living daily in poor neighborhoods – with poor housing, poor schools, high crime rates – is not exactly a life of luxury.
I suppose Mr. Gingrich will also say that American history, policies of wanton racism and discrimination had nothing to do with breeding and perpetuating the plight of the poor. Even worst, Mr. Gingrich seems to think that he, if he were to become President, nor the government and its policies should have anything to do with making it better.
What would Mr. Gingrich think of a comment like this to describe all rich children?
“Really rich children, in really rich neighborhoods have no habits of working hard and really have nobody around them who have earned their money without exploiting, gouging, and cheating others. So literally, they are insensitive to the plight of the middle class and working class. They have a sense of entitlement when it comes to getting into the best schools or getting the best jobs whether they are qualified or not. They have no sense of working and pulling themselves up by their boot straps because they were born with silver spoons, all the boots, clothes, and cars they need, afforded them by the exploitation of others.”
What do you think, Mr. Gingrich, is that an accurate description of rich children? It sounds very similar to your characterization of poor children. Only rich children have gotten the better end of the deal.