In Katz’s “From Underclass to Entrepreneur: New Technologies of Poverty Work in Urban America,” the underclass is a group of people defined not by poverty but by characteristics like drugs, crime, teenage pregnancy and high unemployment. Over time, those qualities became synonymous and the poor became the underclass. I think that was inevitable because they overlap, so it makes sense, but it’s a little too general for my liking.
There was one particular description of the underclass that I found very interesting: the categorization of the poor. Ken Auletta organized poor people into groups that he labeled as the passive poor, the hostile, the hustlers, and the traumatized. I like this approach because it helps to differentiate the people who are making the best and the worst of the same situation. Naturally, we see the bad things and then assume that everyone in that predicament is doing them. Not every poor person is a criminal, but many people, including myself sometimes, perceive them all that way. This categorization can change that. Although it might be true to a certain extent, it is still unfair to say that every poor person is a dropout or an addict. If that can be eliminated, then a lot of issues regarding stereotypes can too.
Something that comes up is that the concept of the underclass supports the practice of blaming the victim. I believe this happens a lot to those involved with drugs, delinquency, and pregnancy out of wedlock. This isn’t to say that it is never their fault, but it seems that people ignore the possibility of external factors. For example, a drug addict may not have chosen to become one of his or her own free will. However, all we see is a poor life choice. Nobody considers what could have driven that person to that point and whether or not it had anything to do with him or her at all. Instead, we cast these people aside as the underclass. With this logic, people in that type of situation may never be able to find a way out.
The example that Katz makes of Muhammad Yunus, who distributed money on the idea that the poor are inherently entrepreneurial, brought a few questions to my mind. How true is that statement? We hear stories all the time of people who came from nothing and now have everything, but how often does that actually happen? If the poor really are such fervent entrepreneurs, how successful are they? Clearly there is some truth to this statement, or else Katz would not have written this chapter, but I wonder if it still holds true today. All we’ve been hearing about in the news lately is the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Maybe it was the time period and the need to oppose racism that encouraged them back then, but I’m not so sure that poor people nowadays have that ambition or opportunity.
Even so, the micro-finance method sounds effective. I don’t expect everyone to climb to the top with this bit of help, because that’s just impossible, but it’s better than nothing. At the very least, it supports saving, which can eventually assist the elimination of the underclass. The question is not if they should be saving but how the government can help them save. I think people are definitely capable of that, and they should absolutely be aided in doing so. Sadly, in today’s economy, I can’t say that the government is doing such a great job of that.
