Word: underclass
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Based on a 1994 series that won Dash the Pulitzer Prize, Rosa Lee is an unflinching portrait of underclass pathology in Washington's ghetto. The protagonist, Rosa Lee Cunningham, was a 57-year-old chronic welfare recipient, petty thief, drug addict and prostitute who died from aids earlier this year. Her worst failing may have been passing along her self-destructive traits to most of her offspring; she was even capable of recruiting one of her daughters into prostitution at age 11. Of her eight children by six different fathers, only two managed to escape to the mainstream world, through...
...welfare reform: that changing the nature of the system requires large investments in changing both the opportunities and the incentives that millions of Americans face; that such changes will inevitably produce some harsh consequences; and that welfare, however reformed, cannot solve all the problems of the nation's underclass any more than welfare, unreformed, is to blame for all of them...
...Trainspotting" provides several very big laughs and perhaps hits just as much as it misses in depicting a certain breed of underclass, heroin-addicted youth in Scotland. Of course, the parents watch TV far too much yet keep on struggling, as those dang kids keep getting into trouble...
...Bribery Starts Here." While it is illegal in the U.S. to bribe a police officer, influencing a politician by using so-called soft money seems to be perfectly O.K. Why should I bother to vote, knowing that elected officials are like tools bought by giant corporations to manipulate the underclass? On Election Day, I'm going to stay in my small shop, where I make barely enough money to survive. Maybe by working those hours instead of wasting them going to the polls, I will be able to buy a Senator who can get to the White House. BERGE WASSILIAN...
Wilson, who will begin teaching at Harvard this fall after 24 years at the University of Chicago, believes the problem of the underclass can be attacked only by "race neutral" programs such as government-financed jobs and universal health care. "The growing gap between the haves and have-nots in our society does not just include blacks, but a lot of Hispanics and even lower-middle-class whites," says Wilson. "In this sort of economic climate, people are not receptive to messages that address the problems of other groups and ignore theirs...