Where We Stand: Class Matters

hooks examines the shifting perception of poverty in the United States, arguing that communal values have been replaced by consumerism and individualism, leaving the poor more alienated than ever. While religious teachings once frames poverty as honorable, this narrative has been displaced by shame and vilification. Today, poverty is not only marked by material deprivation but by a systematic assault on self-worth, perpetuated through negative media representations and economic segregation.

During hooks’s childhood, Black communities understood that poverty was not an individual failing but a consequence of systemic racism—”We rightly saw the poor as victims of an economic system that did not create structures to enable all citizens to adequately provide for themselves” (123). However, many believed that ending racism would create economic opportunities for all, unaware that capitalism itself relies on surplus labor to maintain inequality. This lack of awareness about predatory capitalism, she argues, prevented meaningful critiques of the economic structures that ensure poverty remains entrenched.

By the 1970s, mainstream narratives about the poor had radically shifted. The rise of liberal individualism and hedonistic consumerism reframed poverty as a personal failure.