Mother Jones
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Last month, after Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) blamed a “culture problem” in America’s “inner cities” for the nation’s intractable poverty epidemic, he was accused of racial dog whistling. Ryan later apologized, calling his comments “inarticulate,” and last week he met with the Congressional Black Caucus, where he reiterated his apology. But the episode undermined Ryan’s year-and-a-half long effort to fashion himself into the leading Republican voice on poverty. And it begged the question of what Ryan—whose budgets have consistently called for steep cuts to social safety net programs—had actually learned during the national “listening tour” of low-income communities he had embarked on following his failed vice presidential bid.
His guide—and guru—on this journey has been a former civil rights activist and prominent African-American conservative named Robert Woodson Sr., who has devoted his life to trying to help low-income people help themselves.
“What he said was true,” Woodson says of Ryan’s “inner cities” comments, though he adds, “I would not have advised him to say it.” Such remarks don’t go over well, Woodson notes, when they’re made by people who don’t have much of a track record helping the poor.
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