Are Middle-Class Virtues Normative?

Roberta Rosenberg’s essay “’I Hate this Book’: Middle-Class Virtues and the Teaching of Multicultural Texts” addressed why it is often easier to accept cultural disparity in regards to race, ethnicity, or religion, but not class. In the United States, middle-class values tend to be seen as “the norm.” Poverty is inextricably linked to “fatalism, helplessness, dependence and inferiority.” Middle-class Americans are driven to increase the perceived gap between themselves and the poor. Impoverished Americans are not to be related to or sympathized with. In an era where the American Dream is just a fantasy, the poor are chastised and punished for failing to succeed.

In The Beans of Egypt, Maine the Bean family is a striking example of the failure of the lower class, rather than a failure of America as a whole. If America is characterized by middle-class values, then the Beans cannot even been considered Americans. Instead, Earlene describes them as entirely the other. They are more animals than human as Roberta’s babies resemble a pack of wild hyenas with “fox colored” eyes.

In an ultimate defiance of middle-class virtues, the Beans seem to be content in their poverty. They do not go to school or church and refuse government aid that may alleviate their situation. Although Rosenberg points out that there is also a third person narrator who is sympathetic with the Beans, readers refuse to acknowledge this voice. After reading this essay, I went back and looked at moment that the Beans are presented in a positive light. With Rosenberg’s comments in mind, I realized that I had skipped these passages because I found them to be unbelievable. Once my opinion of the Beans had formed, I refused to allow a counter argument to sway me.

I hoped Rosenberg would have addressed why readers easily accept cultural disparity in regards to race. Is it because that disparity is so engrained in our culture? Does middle-class America really mean middle-class, suburban, white, Christian, America? I think this essay will affect the ways I read other literature. I hope to recognize that the virtues associated with middle-class America are not necessarily those that should be perpetuated.

The Lens of Poverty

Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine is not pleasant to read. At no point are readers content with the character’s poverty that has forced them to live without morals. Yet the poverty and physical decay is not what bothers readers. Instead, it is the notion that Americans can and do live like this. From the squalor in which they live to the incest that is rampant throughout the novel, readers are constantly on edge. Chute’s novel introduces readers to a type of poverty that probably is not seen by the average American.

In class on Monday, our discussion led us to ask why Chute wrote the novel. Although it is undoubtedly important to confront real poverty, I think it also may be beneficial to see poverty from an analytical and removed prospective, which writing allows. When faced with real poverty, I hope my first instinct would be to be sympathetic to their plight. In this case, I would be driven to help out at first on an individual level. No longer could I compare them to “middle class” life because there would be few similarities.

However, when you read about poverty and are presented with their struggles on a moral level, I think you are forced to look at it from an analytic lens. Rather than questioning the individuals, you are forced to look at the larger insitutions that failed them. By comparing the lives of characters in the “culture of poverty” to my middle-class existence, I would be struck by the dissimilarities that are allowed to flourish in the same state.

I do not think I can look out my window and see true poverty. Yes, there are people that need help. Yes, there are families that struggle every day. By no means do I think people in Waterville have it easy. I think we as Colby students are just really lucky.

Modern Day Grapes of Wrath

In the fall of 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and became the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. Although the cost to human life cannot be underestimated, the economic effects of the hurricane were also extreme. Furthermore, the redistribution of Gulf residents following the disaster is the largest migration in the history of the United States. By 2006, the population of Louisiana declined by almost 5%.

Residents of Gulf areas also criticized the government’s slow response to the disaster. Images of starvation, thirst, and poverty of predominantly black Americans lead to statements like “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” The government’s perceived failure to respond highlighted other issues such as poverty, unemployment, and emergency management.

Similarly, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s displaced 2.5 million people as they moved west. Many residents were forced to move because they could no longer harvest on their land. Others suffered from malnutrition caused by the poor air conditions.

In order to restore the Midwestern plains, the government implemented means to preserve the soil and stabilize prices. For example, government agencies bought cattle from farmers to help them avoid bankruptcy. However, despite government efforts, after ten years the land still failed to support agriculture.

In 2010, the BP oil well bursting served to further the economic problems of the Gulf Area. It is described as the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced.” People who formerly subsisted off the ocean could no longer harvest shrimp or fish from the area. Again they were forced find work elsewhere.

The history of the United States does include natural disasters that have threatened and often destroyed social and economic welfare. However, as the nuclear crisis in Japan results in destruction that the world cannot yet fathom, Americans must respond with the knowledge that our history has provided.