January 7, 2009

On “Middle Class Values”

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I’m wondering why Naomi Riley wrote this short piece in the City Journal. She served (pretty diligently it seems) as a Big Sister to an inner city girl living in a chaotic environment, and found that some people are opposed to mentors consciously trying to instill “middle class values” in their charges. Are we still playing these word games? Call them middle class values, call them “get yourself together” values, call them the road to success if you like—if someone’s mired in disadvantage and likely to repeat the patterns they’ve grown up with, surely something needs to change.

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