Missing Class- Near Poor in America

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Missing Class- Near Poor in America

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Wade from www.VagabondJourney.com has been continuously traveling around the world He is open to answer all questions -  email Vagabondsong@gmail.com. Walk Slow.

Missing Class- Near Poor in America

The missing class is a classification for a growing portion of American society that is ever teetering on the cusps of poverty. They are now neither middle class nor poor, but with every new tiding in the regional economy, turn in governance, and roll of the dice, the missing class can either be propelled into state of well-being or thrust downward into the cellars of society. This sector of the America sits like Humpty Dumpty on a great wall, seemingly just waiting to have a great fall. The missing class is a hopeful designation for the future poor of America.

Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen's case study about the missing class, which just so happens to be called The Missing Class, rummages through the lives of nine families in New York City. They prelude their book by saying that, “Fifty-seven million Americans - including 21 percent of the nation's children – live a notch above the poverty line, and yet the challenges they face are largely ignored. While government programs assist the poor, and politicians woo the more fortunate, the “Missing Class” is largely invisible and left to fend for itself.” I will briefly survey the perils of three missing class families that are outlined in the book:

One missing class family is that of John Floyd who complains that his neighborhood went from being a factory based and full of working class white people to a solid black community to a ghetto to being gentrified in a time span of a few decades. His family now has enough to eat, he has work, but he complains that the white people moving in around him have more money. “What they faced before gentrification was concentrated ghetto poverty. What they face today is relative deprivation. . . Ensconced in their cleaner, safer, richer, whiter neighborhoods, members of the Missing Class are coming to the realization that they're doing better than they ever have, and yet worse in comparison with those now around them.”

I fail to understand how a man like John Floyd can complain about his neighborhood improving, especially since his son was shot dead in the streets when his community was a ghetto. I think Mr. Floyd is an inveterate racist and whiner, who is more concerned with the status of having less material wealth than the white people around him rather than regard for his community.

Another anecdote in The Missing Class is about how sunset park is becoming too expensive to live in because of housing demands from Latin American immigrants. “Here, integration by immigration has created a cacophony of tongues rather than a chorus. Communities sit side by side, bleeding at the edges but largely maintaining their distinct forms and loyalties.”Now the neighborhood is being cleaned up and the rent is rising. Many of the Puerto Ricans who once were a majority in the neighborhood can no longer afford to live there.

It is my impression that rent is based upon the price that people are willing to pay and that race has nothing to do with it. I am very unsure why race is such a large part of this book. In a large part the book is a testament to the idea that we are standing on some odd end point of history and that time is now somewhat static. Places change, cultures adapt, and traditions fade away. If the Missing Class are caught in a transition it is because everybody, everywhere is always caught in transition.

Transition and change are not objectionable states, they are normal.