Class War?

This morning as I was just finishing a lengthy physics assignment, I decided to take a break and see what was happening on the world of Facebook.  As I browsed through the late night posts of my friends, one in particular caught my eye.  The post was a response to the demonstrations in France, calling them stupid and violent. 

While I had to comment (these demonstrations have been largely peaceful!) I couldn't help but wonder, why this seemed so stupid to my US American friends.  Which got me thinking about the apathy of our nation.  Why is it that American workers don't organize when we've got something to say?...which then got me thinking about organized American workers.  What would that look like?  Oh yeah.  A union.

While the economy is in the news day in and day out, little is being framed from a worker's perspective.  Instead, we hear about big business bailouts and corporate takeovers.  What could this mean?  According to Normon Solomon, it means the US is in a class war.  Here's a link to his article on Alternet:

http://www.alternet.org/media/68903?page=1

The article, in my opinion, accurately describes how media sources frame economic issues in the US.  In short, the picture painted by the media do not often include unions or other worker's issues in their economic coverage because they oppose big business.  This, Solomon argues, is a sure sign that US Americans are fighting a class war, and big businesses have the media on their side. 

Another interesting point the author brings up is the cyclical nature of union representation in media.  As unions fail, they at the same time receive less media attention.  This lack of attention then leads US American workers to believe that unions are obsolete. 

While the article is short and a bit vague, it does point out some serious class issues in US American media.  It is interesting to consider that anti-union propaganda does not have to be as blatant as those union-bashing short films corporations show their workers in training.  In fact, anti-union sentiments seep into all US American media through the lack of representations of worker's issues. 

Middle Class Income vs Middle Class Wealth

CNN will be airing a special hosted by Soledad O'Brien on the 20th called "Almighty Debt."  One of the excerpts featured on their website is an interview with Julianne Malveaux.  Here's the link.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/09/23/inam.trailer.almighty.debt.cnn

Basically, the topic of discussion is the difference between middle class income and middle class wealth in US America today.  Malveaux explains that some families come from a wealthy background; they have a cushion for hard economic times such as these.  Other families, many African American families, have no such luxury.  Many people are earning middle class wages currently, but if they lose their jobs they are in trouble. 

This clip was interesting to me in a couple of ways.  The first is that it is a mainstream acknowledgement of the intersections of racism and classism in US America.  This interview highlighted one of the ways in which institutionalized racism exists in our nation.

This interview also seeks to dispel the myth of the American dream.  For some, there truly is no way to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  Even when we begin to make middle class wages we are not truly up.  I feel that acknowledging this is a big step. 

Dignity in Poverty

In browsing ABCs news webpage for possible topics, I came upon an article titled "Defining America's New Face of Poverty,"  written by Lyneka Little.  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Savings/face-poverty-food-banks/story?id=11682134&page=1  The article acknowledges the steep growth of US American citizens living below the poverty line.  They highlight this shift by dramatizing the "fall of the middle class."  Little describes ways in which food pantries have had to respond to the shift; not only are these pantries facing difficulties in providing enough food, they are also working to provide a new sense of dignity to the food pantry experience.  Little describes one food pantry that will soon move to a larger space so that clients can have a more dignified shopping experience (i.e. there will not be a volunteer handing out food.)

To me, this is interesting in that it is only after once solidly middle class citizens began using these services that we begin to think about ways by which to make a visit to the food pantry  more dignified.  Another question I have is why is it that visiting a food pantry is undignified to begin with?  Finally, I find it odd that American poverty has a "new face;" why is it so important for us to make the distinction between those who have always been poor and those who have simply fallen upon hard times? 

Television viewers across America united to watch the season premier of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on Septermber 26.  Here is the link to the episode:
 http://abc.go.com/watch/extreme-makeover-home-edition/SH559052/VD5587918/boys-hope-girls-hope-part-1
It was a special two part premier that focused on Boys Hope Girls Hope, an organization that provides young scholars with tools to gain an education.  The young scholars are nominated by school officials: they are academically talented and they live in government funded projects.  Boys Hope Girls Hope provides lodging to these students, but until Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The girls of the organization did not have the lodging the boys did.  Because of this, the boys of the organization nominated the girls for a spot on the show. 

As always, the premier was emotional.  The woman who runs the organization emotionally described the importance of making a difference in the lives of these young people.  These strong emotions make it difficult to step outside of the feel-good factor of the show to look at it critically, but I am about to try.  In the past, the show has visited families who have substandard living conditions and this time, they visited a group home for bright young women in tough neighborhoods.  While I cannot argue that this is a beautiful idea, I find it problematic that celebrities are called in to these neighborhoods to fix the problem.  To me, it sends the message that the way out of poverty and homelessness is through celebrity involvement.  Certainly, government organizations have not done the trick (take a look at the projects from which these students come).  But I wonder whether it is troublesome to send the message that it takes a famous person to initiate this type of community improvement (while community members are active in the makeover process, it takes the endorsement of the show to get this done.)  Is it ok to send Ty Pennington into these situations as the universal Mr. Fixit?  Or is this distracting from the actual problem i.e. the reason tough neighborhoods and substandard housing exist?  Or does this strip agency from these communities by sending the message that this home building project could not have happened without the help of the rich and famous?  One thing I know for certain is that after the construction, the communities from which the young women of Boys Hope Girls Hope came still exist.  There are still US communities that stifle the development of US America's youth.  Now I wonder how that can be fixed.