“I NEVER THOUGHT THERE WERE
PEOPLE LIVING LIKE THIS, LIKE WE’RE
LIVING HERE, IN THE UNITED STATES.”
In May, the Census Bureau reported that the number of minority births in the U.S., for the very
first time, had exceeded the number of white births.
For whatever else that statistic might mean, it suggests that,
as a new generation of black and
brown Americans comes of age in
these forgotten communities, they
will increasingly find themselves
at the center of the philosophical tug-of-war now paralyzing the
nation and animating a presidential election. It is a debate that
turns on fundamental questions
of wealth, advantage and the role
of government in mitigating, even
minimally, the influence of discrimination and dumb luck—of
where and to whom we are born—
on the odds of acquiring equitable
access to the American dream.
Just last month, the ideological
poles were brought into stark relief
when news broke of a grainy video
showing Republican presidential
contender Mitt Romney telling a
group of wealthy donors, “If the
Hispanic voting bloc becomes as
committed to the Democrats as the
African-American voting bloc has
in the past, why, we’re in trouble as
a party and, I think, as a nation.”
The video also recorded Romney disparaging “47 percent” of the
nation—all presumably supporters of President Barack Obama,
the candidate quipped—as undertaxed, dependent on government
programs and unwilling to “take
responsibility for their lives.”
Critics, of course, quickly pointed out that many of the households
Romney categorically dismissed
are, in fact, among the nation’s
poorest, and whose subsistence
income is mercifully exempt from
federal income tax. Others noted
that Romney’s own father benefitted from welfare and other government programs early in life.
In broader terms, however, concern and finger-pointing over the
persistence of grinding poverty in
the U.S. is not a purely partisan
affair. Many activists in the most
distressed communities I visited for
this article also criticized the current leadership in Washington for
cutting housing and loan programs
that are vital to the rural poor; for
favoring cities over small towns; or