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WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, EDWARDS, POVERTY, AND THE AMERICAN PROSPECT WAYBACK MACHINE. Yesterday's conversation on Edwards left me hunting for some of poverty expert William Julius Wilson's work to see how much symmetry there was between his arguments and Edwards' appeal. My past reporting on Edwards had seen his name come up a lot, but he's a famous guy, so it wasn't clear whether he was being mentioned for enhanced credibility, or because he was a real influence. And since I'm always looking for opportunities to publicize the awesomely rich and totally free TAP archives, here's Wilson in our pages -- in our very first issue, in fact (ignore the date on the article, it's wrong) -- advocating for a "Race-Neutral Policies":
a change of emphasis is overdue. In the 1960s efforts to raise the public's awareness and conscience about the plight of black Americans helped to enact civil rights legislation and affirmative action programs. However, by the 1980s the civil rights strategy of dramatizing black disadvantage was backfiring. The "myth of black progress" theme, frequently invoked to reinforce arguments for stronger race-specific programs, played easily into the hands of conservative critics of antibias policies. The strategy reinforced the erroneous impression that federal antidiscrimination efforts had largely failed, and it overlooked the significance of complex racial changes since the mid-1960s. It also aroused concern that Democratic politicians' sensitivity to black complaints had come at the expense of the white majority.The tortuous struggles of the 1960s produced real gains. To deny those achievements only invites demoralization among both black and white advocates of racial justice. Yet the movement for racial equality needs a new political strategy for the 1990s that appeals to a broader coalition and addresses many problems afflicting minorities that originated in racist practices but will not be solved by race-specific remedies. [...]These programs should be presented, however, not as ways to address the plight of poor minorities (though they would greatly benefit from them), but as strategies to help all groups, regardless of race or economic class. After all, Americans across racial and class lines continue to be concerned about unemployment and job security, declining real wages, escalating medical costs, the sharp decline in the quality of public education, the lack of good child care, and crime and drug trafficking in their neighborhoods.So in fact, it looks like Edwards' rhetorical strategy on poverty is something akin to a direct lift from William Julius Wilson, who's fairly well steeped in the racial inequalities of the subject. I don't know if that's the best approach, or the one he should be taking, but it does appear to have a lineage, and some sort of rationale.And to delve into the real point of this post, TAP has been around for over 15 years, and the number of remarkable intellectuals and authors who have graced our pages is impressive. We keep our archives open and free, and an afternoon spent wandering around the author list can be quite profitable...--Ezra Klein
