Was Paul Ryan's remark inarticulate or racist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When the GOP says "inner city," they mean "black."

It's racist.

This is simply not true. Have you ever been to the "inner city?"
Perhaps when YOU hear "inner city," YOU think black.
He is not racist.
Throwing the word "racist" around when it is not true lessens the meaning of the word when indeed one IS racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the GOP says "inner city," they mean "black."

It's racist.

This is simply not true. Have you ever been to the "inner city?"
Perhaps when YOU hear "inner city," YOU think black.
He is not racist.
Throwing the word "racist" around when it is not true lessens the meaning of the word when indeed one IS racist.

80% of inner city residents are minorities. Only 40% of poor people live in cities.

So you tell me who has the more incorrect stereotype, that poverty is particularly an inner city problem, or that inner city is a code for "black"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the GOP says "inner city," they mean "black."

It's racist.

This is simply not true. Have you ever been to the "inner city?"
Perhaps when YOU hear "inner city," YOU think black.
He is not racist.
Throwing the word "racist" around when it is not true lessens the meaning of the word when indeed one IS racist.

80% of inner city residents are minorities. Only 40% of poor people live in cities.

So you tell me who has the more incorrect stereotype, that poverty is particularly an inner city problem, or that inner city is a code for "black"?

Are all minorities black????? Are you kidding me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both.

First of all, he's wrong in assuming that the issue is confined to the inner city when, in fact, the majority of people below the poverty level are NOT in inner cities.

So in that sense it is racist, and quite ignorant in being selective in an uninformed way.

Not "inarticulate" because I think he said what he meant. But what he meant was informed by ignorance, and the code word / subtext is clear even though/if there is a nugget of truth in it. It's half-truth at best, and even so, selectively misleading in a way that panders to his constituency.

He really is a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like.

DINGDINGDINGDING!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Cosby pretty much says the same thing.

[Anonymous]

SO Bill Cosby saying it give is legitimacy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SO Bill Cosby saying it give is legitimacy?

So, only a black can say it? If it's the truth?

[Anonymous]

Jamelle Bouie is excellent on this (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/12/what-paul-ryan-gets-wrong-about-inner-city-poverty.html):

"Our realities are shaped by a mutually reinforcing matrix of culture, civil society, law, and individual choice (among other things). If America has a “car culture,” it has as much to do with our rugged sense of individualism as it does with our sprawling geography, and a government that made highways an essential part of our transportation infrastructure. To look at our attachment to cars and proclaim “culture” is to miss most of the story....

The same goes for Ryan and poverty. Inner-city poverty didn’t just happen, it was built. It’s the job of a policymaker to understand the full scope of what that means, from the blueprints of past policies, to their implementation, to the forces that drove the issues to begin with. And in the case of urban poverty, the issue was racism."

Also, as someone who grew up amid the poor, uneducated white people of Appalachia, I'd like to see some attention to the "culture problem" there. Multi-generational poverty, domestic abuse, rampant drug abuse, terrible schools, high teenage birth rate, hopelessness--everything Paul Ryan and his type decry in urban black populations. So is that a "culture problem," Paul Ryan? Somehow I suspect he'd be quick to blame the loss of manufacturing jobs instead.

[Anonymous]

The same goes for Ryan and poverty. Inner-city poverty didn’t just happen, it was built. It’s the job of a policymaker to understand the full scope of what that means, from the blueprints of past policies, to their implementation, to the forces that drove the issues to begin with. And in the case of urban poverty, the issue was racism."

Change the last word to welfare. Paying women only if there was not a man in the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Cosby pretty much says the same thing.

And Chris Rock.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SO Bill Cosby saying it give is legitimacy?

So, only a black can say it? If it's the truth?

First of all, what is "a black"? Second of all, you totally missed the point of what I was saying.

[Anonymous]

Also, as someone who grew up amid the poor, uneducated white people of Appalachia, I'd like to see some attention to the "culture problem" there. Multi-generational poverty, domestic abuse, rampant drug abuse, terrible schools, high teenage birth rate, hopelessness--everything Paul Ryan and his type decry in urban black populations

This has been a problem for lots longer than the inner city problem--I think. I don't have an answer to this. Jobs would help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bill Cosby pretty much says the same thing.

And Chris Rock.

Chris Rock saying it makes it true?
And when did Chris Rock say this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, as someone who grew up amid the poor, uneducated white people of Appalachia, I'd like to see some attention to the "culture problem" there. Multi-generational poverty, domestic abuse, rampant drug abuse, terrible schools, high teenage birth rate, hopelessness--everything Paul Ryan and his type decry in urban black populations

This has been a problem for lots longer than the inner city problem--I think. I don't have an answer to this. Jobs would help.

Republicans blame job loss when white communities are besieged by the pathologies above. When black communities suffer from the same problems, Republicans blame the "culture." In other words, bad things might *happen* to white people, but black people cause their own problems. Same old story.

[Anonymous]

Paul Ryan is a "rich" kid from a manufacturing, heavily white town in Wisconsin. There is actual poverty in Janesville, and most of it is white, and the result of the manufacturing jobs leaving in the past 10 years. Having grown up in a community near his, I would say yes, claiming things are an "inner city" problem is absolutely code for poor black people - as he blatantly ignores the poor white people in Janesville.