'New' Labor Beat video... '... dissects the way mainstream politicians (Rudolph Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr.), conservative intellectuals and the corporate media conspired to demonize inner city neighborhoods and their residents. ..'
Steve Macek, author of "Urban Nightmares." Labor Beat photo."Demonizing the Inner City: Ideology and the Urban Poor" in now available in a restored format On YouTube at: http://youtu.be/m8pz4xyAhAI and from Labor Beat. In light of current events and recent history, the story is as important today in 2014 as when it was first produced in 2007.
Labor Beat in 2007 produced a video based on an analysis made by Steve Macek, author of "Urban Nightmares." Its relevance has only increased for 2014 in light of racist/jackboot police repression in Ferguson, MO. Virtually adjacent to St. Louis' north side, Feguson's population is 67% Black and estimated per capital income is $20,000. We have re-digitized and re-formated the video since its first showing in 2007.
Steve Macek -- author of the book "Urban Nightmares: The Media, The Right and the Moral Panic over the City" (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) -- analyzes the hysteria over the central city and the urban poor that permeated American politics and popular culture in the 1980s and 90s. Macek dissects the way mainstream politicians (Rudolph Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr.), conservative intellectuals and the corporate media conspired to demonize inner city neighborhoods and their residents.
Demonizing the inner city and the urban poor has been a staple of corporate media since the Victorian era in England. Whether the underclass is working class Irish in England in the 19th and early 20th Century or poor black children in the USA in the 21st Century, the script from the wealthy is always the same. The poor deserve what they get because they are shiftless, lazy, undereducated -- and not deserving of the benefits that society places in the laps of those who own and operate the world.In particular, he discusses the way that TV news reproduced and validated the right�s stigmatizing, victim-blaming images of the urban poor. Ultimately, he critiques the reactionary political interests served by this divisive discourse on urban pathology and points to what activists can do to counter its destructive influence. Includes assorted visuals. In his conclusion, Macek notes: "Poverty is not an ameliorable side effect of capitalism, it is one of the central effects of capitalism and is central to the reproduction of capitalism."
The video is enhanced with photos and related footage. Length - 28:23
