The Underclass and Structural Racism

Sociologist William Julius Wilson called urban poor as "lower class." The main problem confronted by the lower class members is that "social isolation in poor communities leads to unemployment." (1) They are suffering not only for their low socio-economic status, lack of minimum education and opportunities, but also due to the lack of local security and resources. Lower classes are characterized by lack of employment opportunities and lack of social support.

For structural reasons such as racial discrimination (Glasgow, 1980), the concept of poverty in the poor in the 1980s and 1990s focused on the fact that some of the population is not mainstream. This population living in an isolated, isolated, and criminalized area has a wide range of social responsibilities including low labor market dependence, low educational background and participation in welfare dependence, substance abuse, single parent family and underground economy Be characterized by behavior. As mentioned earlier, anyone who has read the work of an American urban reformer in the 19th century is familiar with this viewpoint, and the mixed contrary to their concerns is reminiscent of the current view. However, there are important differences. One of them is welfare support as an option, but this support has received great pressure from the 1996 welfare reform law.

Herbert Guns is one of the most outspoken critics about the lower class concept. Gans said that American journalists who were partially influenced by academic writings on "poor culture" redefined structural terms (in other words, subordinate classes of social / economic / political structural conditions It is defined as an action condition). The lower class (in other words, the lower class is defined in the secondary culture of rational choice and / or reference to poverty). Cancer thinks that the term "lower class" is synonymous with poor black people, but they appear as crime, deviation or "mere non-middle class".

The conservative government of those days used lower classes to classify and deny British absolute poverty. This view on the lower class supports the view that the poor should be responsible for poverty and inequality, not structural inequality at the time. If lower classes do not change their approach, conservatives will adopt this negative concept to reduce welfare. This has expanded the poverty gap, conservatives are regarded as irresponsible and we have not dealt with social poverty.