Andrea Batista Schlesinger
Rolling over in his grave
My favorite question to respond to is - how did the Drum Major Institute come to focus on the middle class?
Well, it's not always phrased so nicely.
Sometimes on lefty radio stations I get:
How dare you focus on the middle class and not the poor?
Sometimes from reporters I get:
Is this focus on the middle class part of a vast conspiracy to weigh in on the NYC mayoral elections?
And my favorite one from a foundation person was:
Dr. King would roll over in his grave if he knew an organization bearing his legacy was focused on strengthening and expanding the middle class.
Well, actually, no. He wouldn't.
You see, no one was better at using the message of the American Dream to appeal to Americans' basic sense of fairness and equality. And in this country, most Americans view their ability to enter and hold onto a spot in the middle class as the American Dream, no matter who they are.
Dr. King believed in fighting for economic justice. In our country, we have rapidly become a nation of the very wealthy and everyone else. Middle-class families are holding record amounts of debt as prices rise and wages are stagnant and are filing for bankrupcy at record levels. One in four of the newly uninsured earn middle class incomes. Faced with increased property taxes and tuition and energy and the choice to save for their children's education or their own retirement, what is means to be middle class is just different today.
Everyone but the very wealthy is united by a general sense of vulnerability and unease about their future.
The Plastic Safety Net: The Reality Behind Debt in America, a study released today by Demos' Economic Opportunity Project, is a perfect illustration of what it means to operate in today's fragile economy. According to their findings, Americans owe nearly $800 billion in credit card debt, "nearly triple the amount in 1989," and it's not going to SUV's -- it's going to managing essential expenses.
There is opportunity for coalition here in the midst of this sad state of affairs. Coalition against a Congress that would push for a harsh and unforgiving Bankruptcy Bill to teach Americans some responsibility while approving a record corporate tax bill grounded in irresponsibility. Coalition against the orthodoxies of the Right that pretend the American middle class was created by the free market, and coalition against the orthodoxies of the Left that reject any kind of focus on the American Dream as bourgeois.
So that's why we focus on it. Sorry to disappoint the political reporters, and everyone else who fancies himself a historian.
Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 3:48 PM, Oct 13, 2005 in
Middle-class squeeze
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