Evidently, saying that a "culture of poverty" keeps people poor is racist.

I have been doing some reading on the topics of generational poverty and the "culture of poverty" (it's a thing) and I engaged a liberal friend about it the other night.

I argued that poor inner-city black people develop habits and lifestyles that contribute to them being poor, their children being poor, and their children's children being poor. These folks pass on a learned helplessness to their kids. They devalue educational achievement. They are ignorant of history, or even of a world outside their own neighborhood. Planning for the future is non-existent, which results in them immediately spending any money they get on frivolities like alcohol and cigarettes. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a liberal scion, concluded this in 1964.

My liberal friend (female) responded that my argument is racist, it blames the victim, and it "ignores structural obstacles to people who lack financial and social capital." If it sounds like she took that out of a book, she did. I found similar drivel on the internet by egghead scholars.

So y'all can relax. There is nothing cultural about it. It's white people's fault that black families have disintegrated and places like New Orleans are overrun with poverty and crime. Glad I got this solved.