"This nation has always struggled with how it was going to deal with poor people and people of color. Every few years you will see some great change in the way that they approach this. We've had the war on poverty that never really got into waging a real war on poverty"
About this Quote
America’s policy mood swings are the point here: a country that can narrate itself as generous and meritocratic while repeatedly designing systems that keep poor people and people of color at arm’s length. Maxine Waters isn’t offering a soft lament; she’s indicting a cycle. “Every few years” lands like a metronome of managed outrage - the recurring ritual where leaders rename the problem, announce a program, and then retreat before anything threatens entrenched power.
The subtext is that poverty isn’t treated as an emergency; it’s treated as a condition to administer. By linking “poor people and people of color” as a joined political category, Waters flags what American debates often try to separate: race and class aren’t parallel conversations here, they’re braided. The country’s “struggle” isn’t confusion about solutions; it’s conflict about who deserves the full benefits of citizenship.
Her sharpest move is the phrase “war on poverty,” which she turns against its own marketing. “War” implies mobilization, budgetary seriousness, a willingness to disrupt normal life. Waters says we never actually chose that. The Great Society’s ambitions, later undercut by backlash politics, deindustrialization, and punitive welfare and policing regimes, become proof of her claim: the rhetoric was muscular, the follow-through was cautious.
As a politician, Waters is also playing defense against the cynicism that reform is always futile. The critique isn’t that change is impossible; it’s that America keeps opting for symbolic gestures over structural confrontation - and then calls the gesture progress.
The subtext is that poverty isn’t treated as an emergency; it’s treated as a condition to administer. By linking “poor people and people of color” as a joined political category, Waters flags what American debates often try to separate: race and class aren’t parallel conversations here, they’re braided. The country’s “struggle” isn’t confusion about solutions; it’s conflict about who deserves the full benefits of citizenship.
Her sharpest move is the phrase “war on poverty,” which she turns against its own marketing. “War” implies mobilization, budgetary seriousness, a willingness to disrupt normal life. Waters says we never actually chose that. The Great Society’s ambitions, later undercut by backlash politics, deindustrialization, and punitive welfare and policing regimes, become proof of her claim: the rhetoric was muscular, the follow-through was cautious.
As a politician, Waters is also playing defense against the cynicism that reform is always futile. The critique isn’t that change is impossible; it’s that America keeps opting for symbolic gestures over structural confrontation - and then calls the gesture progress.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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