How the Poor Became Black

Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording, Editors The University of Michigan Press, 2003. chapter 4. How the Poor Became Black The Racialization of American Poverty in the Mass Media martin gilens Race and poverty are now so closely entwined that it is hard to believe there was a time when discussions of American poverty neglected blacks altogether. African Americans have always been dispro- portionately poor, but Black poverty was ignored by white society throughout most of our history. In the following pages, I analyze over 40 years of news media cover- age of poverty in order to trace changes in racial images of the poor. I. nd that until the mid-1960s, poverty appeared overwhelmingly as a white problem in the national news media. But in a very brief period beginning in 1965, the media's portrayal of American poverty shifted dra- matically. Although the true racial composition of the American poor remained stable, the face of poverty in the news media Became markedly darker between 1965 and 1967.

Other chapters in this volume ably document the many ways in ... juvenile delinquency, education and training programs for those lacking marketable skills, and federal assistance for depressed regions of the ... importantly, made up 12 percent of the population in urban areas (Turner 1993, 249, 251).

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  Area, Chapter, Urban, Juvenile, Juvenile delinquency, Delinquency, In urban areas

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