Record unemployment and rampant corporate avarice, empty houses but homeless families, dwindling opportunities in an increasingly paralyzed nationβthese are the realities of 21st-century America, land of the free and home of the new middle class poor. Award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, one of the nationβs leading democratic intellectuals, co-hosts of Public Radioβs Smiley & West , now take on the βPβ wordβpoverty.
The Rich and the Rest of Us is the next step in the journey that began with βThe Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience.β Smiley and Westβs 18-city bus tour gave voice to the plight of impoverished Americans of all races, colors, and creeds. With 150 million Americans persistently poor or near poor, the highest numbers in over five decades, Smiley and West argue that now is the time to confront the underlying conditions of systemic poverty in America before itβs too late.
By placing the eradication of poverty in the context of the nationβs greatest moments of social transformationβ such as the abolition of slavery, womanβs suffrage, and the labor and civil rights movementsβending poverty is sure to emerge as Americaβs 21st -century civil rights struggle.
As the middle class disappears and the safety net is shredded, Smiley and West, building on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., ask us to confront our fear and complacency with 12 poverty changing ideas. They challenge us to re-examine our assumptions about poverty in Americaβwhat it really is and how to eliminate it now.
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