Response to Tracinski

Here's my response to an article by Robert Tracinski published in The Intellectual Activist. I find articles like this challenging to respond to - lagely because I can remember thinking this way once and feeling the "rightness" of that opinion. However, my thinking and feelings have changed a lot since then and even though Tracinski may have some points, I think he's sorely lacking in compassion for human suffering and the systems that perpetuate such suffering.
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It's hard to know how to even formulate a response to something as lacking in compassion or understanding of some of the bigger issues impacting these people. I Googled the author and he calls himself "The Intellectual Activist." To me, that title alone makes a profound statement about this man's perspective, as I view activism as something prompted by compassion for the people and the cause I support. Aside from what seems to me to be a very cold and heartless analysis, he makes any number of statements and offers no evidence to support what he says. I heard him repeating quite a bit of the hardline, conservative Republican rhetoric (rhetoric that's been in place at least since Gingrich was Speaker) but he offers little proof that what he says is true.

I think that responding to people like Tracinski is difficult because there may be some truth to what they say and none of us (especially we bleeding heart liberals) want to admit that. That said, I also think it's a twisted and maimed version of the truth. Do the circumstances of extreme poverty prompt really bad choices and behavior from people? Of course. Should we condone those behaviors, not acknowledge them, or fail to implement consequences? Of course not. Should we also find a way to have compassion for these suffering people and alter the consequences if appropriate? I think so. It doesn't help poor people for us to romanticize them and their circumstances and expect some sort of "noble suffering" and "heroic sacrifices" beyond what all people are capable of. People are not necessarily any more ethical, moral, or socially responsible simply because they suffer or are oppressed.

In any case, I found many of his statements outrageous and his claims downright ludicrous. I'm offended that he makes unfounded connections between people on welfare and people in prisons (not even mentioning the racism & classism clearly evident in our criminal justice system). I think his statements about some of the problems with public housing are probably true but to condemn people because they live there is inexcusable. That's the old line of blaming poor people for being poor. Thanks to Barbara Bush for her "sympathetic" statements in that regard also. Another aspect of poverty that Tracinski fails to even consider is the plight of the working poor. We're talking about people who hold down two or more jobs and still can barely make ends meet. Those people are probably part of the "project populations" he excoriates and they certainly aren't "welfare parasites."

People who think along these lines (some of my family included) aren't interested in finding out what is really going on and throwing "our" numbers/information at them doesn't help. You can find numbers and facts to back up any crazy statement you want to make. A friend of mine predicted that some of the news channels and media outlets would try to spin the story this way and it looks like she was right. As usual, instead of looking at why these people are so desperate and (according to one man's statement) "throwaway people", let's continue blaming them for being poor, think they're animals because they're not white, and send in the military to shoot down US citizens. The entire governmental response was criminal but the ongoing refusal to admit that classism and racism played an enormous part in extending the suffering of these people is a bigger crime still.