Newt Gingrich is Scrooge who'll steal poor kids' childhood
OPINION - As we approach the Christmas holidays, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich appears to be taking his political cues from Ebenezer Scrooge...
As we approach the Christmas holidays, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich appears to be taking his political cues from Ebenezer Scrooge, who when asked to help the poor during the Christmas holidays stated that the prisons and poor houses were enough for people living in poverty.
Every four years or so, conservatives bring out their bag of hate filled, stereotypical stocking stuffers. This year Gingrich, an old GOP favorite, is taking his turn. The GOP front-runner shamelessly and groundlessly said “really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works to earn money — unless it’s illegal.”
theGrio opinion: Newt Gingrich has already lost the minority vote
Isn’t that brilliant? In one sound bite he is able to rekindle many of the old racially demeaning favorites: welfare queens, the lazy native and ex-slave motifs, and poor, criminal robber kids in dangerous neighborhoods. The only thing he didn’t fit in is the alleged sexual promiscuity of black and Latino women, but I think that’s buried in there too.
Newt’s solution is to eliminate child labor protections and open the door to a new age of exploiting poor children.
In this current age Gingrich is digging out an old playbook loaded with coded language that speaks to stereotypes and lies around class and race. He need not come out and say black and immigrant poor for the images to crop up in the minds of the groups that he is pandering to.
The racialized and class bases of the images of the poor are as old as the country itself. Although the labor of enslaved Africans was the basis of wealth accumulation here in the U.S. and the world they were stereotyped as lazy and unproductive and needed to be pushed to do work. These images have been instituted into the common culture and belief of many Americans.For those who don’t remember Ronald Reagan’s 1976 campaign for president, should know that Reagan added a new page to the book of vilifying the poor when he spoke of “Welfare queens”. He presented a manufactured persona of a woman who was mired in fraud. This “person” was never identified but the image of this “welfare queen” with all of racist and sexist baggage continues to haunt the national discourse.
When you dig down deeper there is no foundation to these beliefs. Facts show that most poor people do work and that poor children have many ready and visible examples of working people, most often at least one of their own parents. These people are often working more than one minimum wage part-time job that requires a full time commitment to maintain. They work without medical benefits or even sick leave. They often have to spend much of their earnings for transportation to and from these jobs.
They have little opportunity to obtain the education and skills to potentially earn more money. But one thing that cannot be denied is that they are some of the hardest working people in the country and though often made invisible in their labors, the working poor keep many essential elements of life and economy going. This includes instilling deep values and working class discipline into their children.
Where the values gap exists is among the 1 percent. Since the 70’s income disparity has increased in this country where a small number of people have growing richer while more and more people are being crushed into the ranks of the poor. Policies of cutbacks in social services, and deregulation have contributed to this scenario. Many African-Americans remain on the very bottom.
Amongst the uber-rich, whose kids increasingly are born not having to work, there is a real crisis of values. Their lot in life is increasingly concerned with just hanging onto their wealth rather than being productive members of society.
As far as illegal activity the poor have nothing on the rich. For example, in Rachel Shteir’s book The Steal, she points out that Americans with incomes of $70,000 a year shoplift 30 percent more than those earning up to $20,000. However wealth or celebrity shoplifters are rarely prosecuted. The rich also have other legal if not just and moral ways to steal with special tax breaks and loopholes that only benefit the rich and put a larger and disproportionate tax burden on middle and lower income families.
Unfortunately their greed, like Scrooge, in the Christmas Tale, consumes them. We have come to a point in U.S. history where this is not just a personal tragedy. The hording of wealth by the 1 percent, and their refusing to reinvest in the US economy is not only destroying their own moral fiber but also the well being of the rest of us.
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