The Other America

In 1970, when I was in ninth grade, an enlightened teacher introduced me to a ground-breaking book. The Other America, written by Michael Harrington in the early 1960s, shocked a nation with an image of poverty amid affluence and prompted the Kennedy-Johnson War on Poverty. I know I was shocked when I first read Harrington's book. I lived in a middle-class suburb, and had never realized the extent of povery in this land.

In the 1970s, everything was changing. The old order would be overthrown. Poverty and racism would become distant memories. Our leaders would work to end air and water pollution, and no president would ever again commit U.S. troops to an unjust war.

That's what we thought. We were so young and naive.

The nation has been shocked in the last two weeks to discover the extent of poverty in New Orleans. New Orleans meant Mardi Gras and the French Quarter. Fun and more fun. No one outside of New Orleans saw the other side of the city. The poor side.

A common reaction for middle-class Americans is to blame the poor. They just need to work harder. If they weren't so picky about what jobs they were willing to take, they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

But most of America's poor are working poor. The wages paid by corporate America are not enough to support a family. This is the reality. When my 21-year old son was working as a forklift operator for one of those warehouse clubs, he told me about the other men who worked there. Men who had wives and children to support. I know my son's paycheck would not have been enough to take care of a family. Fortunately, he was only working to get money for college. Most workers are not that fortunate.

There is an Other America. We can continue to ignore the facts, or we can get to work helping our fellow citizens.

Isn't that more patriotic than blowing things up?