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Blaming the Victim Mass Market Paperback – July 12, 1976
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The classic work that refutes the lies we tell ourselves about race, poverty and the poor.
Here are three myths about poverty in America:
– Minority children perform poorly in school because they are “culturally deprived.”
– African-Americans are handicapped by a family structure that is typically unstable and matriarchal.
– Poor people suffer from bad health because of ignorance and lack of interest in proper health care.
Blaming the Victim was the first book to identify these truisms as part of the system of denial that even the best-intentioned Americans have constructed around the unpalatable realities of race and class. Originally published in 1970, William Ryan's groundbreaking and exhaustively researched work challenges both liberal and conservative assumptions, serving up a devastating critique of the mindset that causes us to blame the poor for their poverty and the powerless for their powerlessness. More than twenty years later, it is even more meaningful for its diagnosis of the psychic underpinnings of racial and social injustice.
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateJuly 12, 1976
- Dimensions4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
- ISBN-100394722264
- ISBN-13978-0394722269
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- Publisher : Vintage; Revised ed. edition (July 12, 1976)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0394722264
- ISBN-13 : 978-0394722269
- Item Weight : 7.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #243,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #155 in Social Services & Welfare (Books)
- #222 in Sociology of Urban Areas
- #807 in Medical General Psychology
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Check out some of the other sound bites .....
He is at fault, although through no fault of his own.
Is the Negro issue primarily a problem of the larger white society or of the Negro minority?
Is he burdened or a burden?
The only issue I had with William's counter-narrative was the liberal number of studies cited in his arguments. As the book as is almost 40 years old, I found it impossible to relate to much of the arguments.
The sad bit is that even after 40 years, much of the prejudice against Negros still remain prevalent across the US, such is the power of the liberal middle class apologists.





