Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about.The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor; with few families in the middle. In this book; MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics; particularly slavery and its aftermath; play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known; simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America; and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor.Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country -- substandard education; dilapidated housing; and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor; most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole; casting recipients of social programs as the Other -- black; Latino; not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system; the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.
#2650188 in Books Noralee Frankel 1999-10-22 1999-10-22Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x 1.17 x 6.12l; 1.30 #File Name: 0253334950288 pagesFreedom s Women Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A Must Read For Anyone Interested in AA Life in Post Civil War MississippiBy NEWSA genealogist friend aware of my research on AA enslaved ancestors from Mississippi handed me this book the other day. I've been researching an ancestor who was a young mother of young children during and immediately after the Civil War. This book was very useful in helping me to reconstruct the events surrounding her life and in learning more about the turbulence of black life in Mississippi after the Civil War. In particular; this book discusses in detail the dynamics of interracial relationships of white slave owners and enslaved women at that time; among many other topics including kin networks; labor contracts and the impact of the Union Army on plantation life.This book is well written and thoroughly researched and is jam packed at its end with pages and pages of useful references for additional reading. I will need to spend the weekend taking notes on the notes. I literally inhaled this book in just about four hours as this era is my favorite area of genealogical research. At its core; this book explains how it was essentially a miracle for enslaved people to survive and eventually escape from slavery Mississippi and its aftermath. This book illustrates in part how an enslaved woman was completely dominated by her owner during and pretty much right after slavery; yet the state laws were constructed in such a way as to protect white men from being held legally responsible for any offspring they may have created with their enslaved women. -Those men had almost thought of everything.. The book goes on from there and doesn’t flinch an inch.This is a required addition to any AA genealogical library.
