112 years of presidential election maps

The video and discussion are available in this article in The Blaze.

For dynamic visuals comparing the direction of the presidential vote for 2012 and 2008, see this recent interactive graphic in the The New York Times.

stealing the American Dream

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/11/17/middle-class-the-squeeze-is-on-heres-why/

peoples' bailout

Wall Street was rescued by the federal government. Why not bail-out ordinary Americans who are overwhelmed with debt? An organization called Rolling Jubilee is behind this effort.

Park Avenue: money, power, and the American Dream

Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream aired on PBS Independent Lens last night and is now available on Hulu. If any student or students would like to write a review of it, please do so ASAP and forward to me for posting.

Nov 11: class, war, and dying (updated Nov 11, 2022)

Veterans' Day is a most appropriate time to reflect on the relation between social class and military service. In particular need of reflection is the fact that those from the lower reaches of the stratification order typically bear the brunt of casualties during war. Poor and working-class men are more often killed because they are more likely to serve in harm's way as non-commissioned front-line soldiers, but they also have been less able to avoid conscription by either paying another to serve as in the Civil War or receiving college deferment as in the Vietnam War (see MacLean, 2012). Today's military is exclusively comprised of volunteers who often join because they lack viable employment alternatives, and this has only heightened the class-biased composition of casualties from recent wars in the Middle East. Moreover, poor and working-class men are also more likely to feel the continuing effects of war in terms of psychiatric distress as they transition out of the service and try to adapt to civilian life.

Army and Marine suicide rates increased sharply between 2001-2020 and today are about twice that for the U.S. population (US Dept of Veterans Affairs 2022) . During the heigth of war in the Middle East, more active-duty military personnel took their lives than died on the battlefield (Williams, 2012). However, suicide among veterans is of even far greater magnitude. According to Veterans Affairs, although about 1 percent of adults served in the military over the past decade, veterans represented 20 percent of all U.S. suicides. As discussed in the above Democracy Now! interviews with Aaron Glantz and others knowledgeable about the issue, the extreme suicide problem among military personnel and veterans reflects several key factors, including multiple deployments to the Middle East and an inadequate government treatment response to depression and PTSD.

For an excellent description of how war produces mental disorders and other adjustment problems, view the PBS Frontline documentary, The Wounded Platoon, which follows soldiers in an Army infantry unit from Fort Riley to deployment in Iraq and then back to the U.S.

why poverty?

 STEPS has created a multimedia initiative to reignite interest in the problem of global poverty. Why Poverty? will feature 8 documentaries and 30 shorter videos that will be released for online and television viewing later this month (trailers and some shorts are already available on its YouTube channel). According to STEPS, the objectives of the initiative are to:
produce narratives that inspire people to think and be part of the solution, 
involve the best filmmakers in the creation of bold and provocative factual films, 
bring together broadcasters worldwide and engage audience through multiple media platforms, 
create a global outreach campaign, supplementing the broadcasts with extra teaching materials, 
and engage with decision-makers and influencers to find solutions for change.

developing cultural capital amidst poverty

Social stratification perspectives to the left of conservatism assume that innate intelligence is not a resource largely monopolized by the affluent. Rather, raw aptitude is distributed throughout the class structure, and the opportunity for cultivation is all that is needed to realize it. This CNN article and video speak to these assumptions in describing a classical music program extended to children living in some of Brazil's poorest slums. Retired pianist, Joao Carlos Martins, started the program several years ago after searching to find kids with music potential. "I discovered so many naturally talented children that I decided to build a project... In 10 years, I intend to build 1,000 string orchestras in underprivileged areas across our country." Along with providing employable skills, his program has been credited with psychologically empowering participants, while diverting them from drugs and crime.

Update: Dec 12, 2012
The above video similarly examines the development of music talent among the poor in South America. Landfill harmonic describes how a Paraguayan community built on piles of refuse fashions crude, but sweet-sounding instruments, out of trash, and what these instruments and the "recycled" orchestra formed around them means to its children. The larger story about this project will soon appear in a full-length documentary.

Thanks to Jay Villarreal for bringing this inspiring clip to attention.

race and wealth inequality

This post was written by Paul Dean and originally appeared in The Sociological Cinema. 

This CBS news report shows dramatic wealth inequalities across race, and how the inequalities have increased dramatically during the Great Recession. Like Oliver and Shapiro's classic book, Black Wealth/White Wealth, the report documents that in 1995, the median white household had a net worth 7 times larger than black and Hispanic households. Citing Census data analyzed by the Pew Center, the video shows that in 2010 white households ($113,000) now have 18 times the net worth of Hispanics ($6,325) and 20 times the net worth of African-Americans ($5,677). It notes that part of this growing difference is that the net worth of most racial minorities is found in their homes, while whites are more likely to also own financial assets. The news team argues that this asset allocation explains why white wealth has rebounded significantly from its recent losses and increased the wealth divide. While this is true, they largely miss other important factors. For example, Melvin Oliver's 2008 report found that African-Americans were the subject of systematic predatory lending during the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession. He noted that "minorities were steered away from safe, conventional loans by brokers who received incentives for jacking up the interest rate" and that their mortgages had "high hidden costs, exploding adjustable rates, and prepayment penalties to preclude refinancing." This not only lead to a drop in the value of minority wealth, but actually stripped much of their assets as borrowers who defaulted on their loans. The video closes by saying "experts say it could be a decade before the wealth gap closes," although they do not cite any experts that say this. Viewers may question the optimism of this prediction and reflect on why it is likely to take much more than a decade for something like wealth (which is passed down from one generation to another) to be more equitably distributed across race. The video is a great accompaniment to the readings linked to above, and perhaps even this comedic video from Chris Rock on race and the differences between being rich and wealthy.

will UTSA be just for rich kids?

Hannah Carney's recent article in The Texas Observer addresses the provocative question: are Texas' public universities just for rich kids? Although data pertinent to this issue are limited, she cites evidence which suggests that this may be the case for at least some public universities in the state. For example, median parent income of UT Austin students is almost twice that for households statewide. According to Carney, "The numbers expose a higher education system that’s suffering from profound economic inequality. The more “elite” the university, the less representative it tends to be of the state’s economic diversity." In addition to difficulties with financing an education, she goes on to connect the issue to enrollment policies, implying that affirmative action for racial and ethnic minority students may be a bit misdirected. A fairer approach, she contends, would have admission at least partially hinged on students' class backgrounds. In all, Carney's analysis is consistent with social reproduction explanations of inequality which hold that schooling in capitalist societies primarily serves to maintain privilege among the haves, while neglecting the interests of those toward the bottom of the class structure.

What about UTSA? It may not be your impression that our students largely come from affluent homes, but what of social class composition down the line? Will continued growth lessen diversity by tightening admission requirements and, particularly what of Tier 1? If realized, will it mean a student body that replicates UT Austin's?

Note: no analysis for UTSA appears in Carney's article, but at its end she does link data for entering students. Although obviously dated (collected in 2004), what does it suggest about economic diversity among our students?

educating black boys

See video at 
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeracorrespondent/2012/10/201210249148948252.html 
The following post is a direct quote from that site.

Baltimore, Maryland has come to be known as 'Charm City' because of its harbour, which attracts a vibrant nightlife and thriving tourism business. But just beyond the harbour's calm waters is one of the toughest and most violent inner cities in the US. Baltimore is also home to Al Jazeera presenter Tony Harris and in this episode of Al Jazeera Correspondent he takes us on an up close and personal journey to his old neighbourhood to witness the challenges facing black youth today as they struggle to get out of the dead end of life on inner city streets. Most of the crime in Baltimore is committed by black males with other blacks as victims, making black males an easy target for the police. And many believe that the stereotyping of black kids starts at an early age in the US--as as early as grade school. In this film, Harris examines how the education system has failed black boys and reflects upon why he managed to make it out successfully while so many of his friends did not. A visit to his former high school reveals the desperation felt by both the pupils and the teachers. "School and criminal justice systems biased against black boys; all echoes of my childhood. But I managed to avoid the trap of Baltimore's cycle of poverty and violence," he explains. "But now I was going back to my hometown to get to the bottom of what I considered the new civil rights fight in America--educating black boys."

...a thousand cuts

what happened to The American Dream?

This post was contributed by Tara McQuay, UTSA student in Miller's SOC 3013 class.

Although The American Dream says that hard work will lead to wealth and success, it doesn't seem to apply to most of us. Indeed, the smallest economic returns go to those generally laboring the hardest of all: the working poor. In the previous post, billionaire Thomas Peterffy argues in his anti-Obama ad that America's rich will lose motivation to work if they are required to pay more taxes. But while preaching the value of hard work, he fails to note that the rich have virtually monopolized income gains over recent years. Reflecting on the unequal opportunity for financial security that the class structure presents, the late Beth Shulman, in her 2005 book, The Betrayal of Work, was one of the first to examine the diminishing well-being of the working poor. In an interview on PBS's NOW in 2007 (view here, starting at about the 12:20 mark), she observed that worker productivity has grown significantly, but this has not trickled down to those in the bottom reaches of the American class structure. Indeed, "The top 1% is garnering 80% of income gains." (Today, it's over 90% going to the top 1%, according to Saenz). With this being said, how is it possible for most American workers, and particularly the poor, to sustain their dream of a better life when their incomes remain so low and stagnant that they continue to struggle just to get by?

ad suggestion: Obama = socialist (or worse?)

A new nationally distributed television ad implies Obama and the Democrats are leading us down a "slippery slope" towards socialism. Thomas Peterffy, the Hungarian-immigrant founder of a discount brokerage chain, both independently sponsored and appears in a sixty-second message that takes him from a boy in his impoverished, communist homeland to a self-made billionaire, a transformation only possible because of the freedoms and opportunities available in America. He warns specifically that "America's wealth comes from the efforts of people striving for success. Take away their incentive with badmouthing success and you take away the wealth that helps us take care of the needy. Yes, in socialism the rich will be poorer--but the poor will also be poorer. People will lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs." 
Read more at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/10/rich-worried-and-buying-ad-time/

super-rich feel dissed by Obama

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

This Colbert Report video touches on the growing antipathy of the super-rich towards President Obama, despite the fact they have enjoyed incredible prosperity over the span of his term. Colbert particularly takes off on a recent article that appeared in The New Yorker about hedge-fund investor anger about Obama's insufficient rhetorical respect for such "wealth creators." 

what to do with your wealth? get help at "Mansion"

In this age of growing income disparities and economic hardship, Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has chosen to further glamorize the rich and their wealth by starting a section called Mansion. According to the launch press release, the new section will appear weekly in the paper copy and daily at WSJ.com. “The mantra for real estate has always been location, location, location – the location for the most intelligent, original, trustworthy and insightful journalism on prestige property is now The Wall Street Journal,” said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. “We all like to think of our home as a mansion, even if it is a humble abode, and we all have the license to aspire, so we have created Mansion to be the home of both aspiration and real estate realization.” For more information on the addition, see introductory video. 

Unfortunately, it does not appear that Mansion will likely offer the kind of coverage about the lifestyles of the rich that readers came to appreciate in Robert Frank's recently discontinued WSJ blog, The Wealth Report. However, Frank's work is now available at CNBC's Inside Wealth.