ABSTRACT
There are moments when I find the culture’s extraordinary reluctance to respond honestly to the realities of social injustice to be ironic and troubling, but most of the time I am horrified and outraged. As I write, we have just finished a Presidential campaign that the press criticized as dull; in which the incumbent glowed about his tough stand on crime and his pride in “ending welfare as we know it”; while one of his opponents delighted in attacking affirmative action and immigration and the other candidate seemed to be overcome with anguish over the public deficit. There was virtually no mention of poverty or racism; no reference to hunger and homelessness; no sense of outrage at unnecessary human suffering. Instead of debate on the plight of the homeless there were ploys to attract soccer moms; the war on poverty had been replaced by a crusade for middle-class tax relief.
