Our homegrown Third World

• The media focus on Hurricane Katrina's victims has washed away the wall that hid the nation's impoverished from the rest of us.

…Apparently none of these ace reporters has ever set foot in Washington's Anacostia district, or South Central Los Angeles, or the trailer parks of rural Arkansas.

Had they done so — or maybe just taken the time to get acquainted with the cleaners vacuuming their offices, or the homeless men selling newspapers at busy intersections — they'd have learned what 37 million Americans already know from personal experience: The Third World didn't sneak in along with Hurricane Katrina. It's been here all the time.

Yup, you heard it here first! Even using the federal government's Scrooge-like definition, about 13% of Americans — and 18% of American children — live in poverty.

They live in poverty all year round, not just on special occasions like during hurricanes. And they're all over this nation, not just in New Orleans….

… And the media are now discovering that, aside from their lamentable poorness and blackness (a skin shade that in fact characterizes only about 30% of nation's poor), our very own Third World residents are an awful lot like the rest of us. They're ordinary people, working hard to get by, trying to preserve their families and their dignity as best they can in a catastrophic situation….

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...a-news-comment