Blaming the Victim

by William Ryan

The classic work that refutes the lies we tell ourselves about race, poverty and the poor.
Here are three myths about poverty in America: – Minority children perform poorly in school because they are “culturally deprived.”
– African-Americans are handicapped by a family structure that is typically unstable and matriarchal.
– Poor people suffer from bad health because of ignorance and lack of interest in proper health care. Blaming the Victim was the first book to identify these truisms as part of the system of denial that even the best-intentioned Americans have constructed around the unpalatable realities of race and class. Originally published in 1970, William Ryan's groundbreaking and exhaustively researched work challenges both liberal and conservative assumptions, serving up a devastating critique of the mindset that causes us to blame the poor for their poverty and the powerless for their powerlessness. More than twenty years later, it is even more meaningful for its diagnosis of the psychic underpinnings of racial and social injustice.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, History, Sociology, Politics, Race, Social Justice

368 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Becky Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this for one of my education courses at Augsburg College back in the early 1980's. It was formational in my thinking about individuals, systems and institutions. I'm not sure many weeks go by where I don't think about what I learned in this book - and how many times can anyone say that about something they had to read for an undergraduate course? Watershed might be too tepid of a description for me.

Sadly, I'm not sure much has changed in our country as I see evidence of this behavior in our current public "debate" on almost every issue.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic. Shows how 'Blaming the Victim', which is described by Ryan as the individualisation of blame for poverty, is an ideology that serves to take focus away from inequality of wealth and power. Written in 1971 it remains hugely pertinent today

[Adam Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ryan's book was originally written in 1971, and is mostly a response to the infamous Moynihan Report on the state of the black family, a report that primarily blamed black people and "black culture" for the problems of poor minorities. Ryan takes great pains to dissect every aspect of this report, many of the conclusions of which large numbers of Americans still believe. If you believe there is a lack of black fathers and this causes problems for "black culture," or that "black culture is matriarchal and therefore problematic, or any of that kind of thing, Ryan's book shows that they were lies in 1971, and recent research also shows that they are just as mythical today. These attempts to dissect "black culture" are merely attempts to blame the victim and let the real culprits, wealth redistribution upward, predatory policing, and economic and racial discrimination, keep on doing what they are doing. The book still offers valuable insight into how we might respond to uncritical claims about the problems with "black culture" today. Ryan also helpfully emphasizes that white people who blame black people for their own problems are to be treated compassionately, because they themselves are the victims of a cultural system that blinds them to the truth.

[Donna Sandidge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I put this on my reading list back in 2011. The book was written in the early 1970s. It is absolutely chilling that the content, with the exception of the statistics and studies, could have been written this year. I love the author's conversational, impassioned writing and how he dismantles the idea of a "culture" of poverty. Compelling reading on how and why power and money are and have been withheld from large segments of our population, particularly black people.

[Kim]

I read this book in 1971. Thought of it again this weekend (July 2019) after watching national news broadcast.

[Meghan Beauchamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely relevant and so many parallels to today. It was fantastic until his proposed solutions.

[Becky_read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blaming the Victim should be mandatory reading from secondary school onwards. How many people outside social science ever read it? How many within our social sectors still perpetuate the very victim-blaming ideologies?

Reading this book in contemporary Australia feels like a direct commentary on today.

Researchers continue to ask questions rooted in the perceived deficiencies of the victim.

Senior officials in departments still assume newly arrived migrants are illiterate, blind to the fact that many are highly educated professionals.

Privileged locals claim to be victims of "anti-white racism," resentful of modest attempts to address the profound disadvantages faced by First Nations peoples.

Elites still claim that alcohol abuse is rooted in the genetically smaller brains of other races. Anyone proposing such a theory must be speaking from personal experience of a smooth brain.

The general public dismisses mental illness with labels like "crazy," a term that reveals more about their own obsessions with property speculation.

This collective failure of critical thought, fuelled by a neoliberalism that has commercialised the public sector, perpetuates the power games of an exploitative class. Ryan’s analysis is so illuminating of the systems upholding inequality that its continued availability is almost surprising.

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a groundbreaking book which takes down white liberal white middle class apologists for the negro plight in the US, and still very relevant 40 years from when it was first written. The popular negative perceptions of the negro race are quite wrong but the language used by the white apologists is both subtle and convincing. Like a murderer who pleads guilty to manslaughter to avoid conviction that might lead to manslaughter, liberal America today is pleading guilty to savagery and oppression against the Negro of one hundred years ago in order to escape trial for the crimes of today.
Check out some of the other sound bites .....

He is at fault, although through no fault of his own.
Is the Negro issue primarily a problem of the larger white society or of the Negro minority?
Is he burdened or a burden?

The only issue I had with William's counter-narrative was the liberal number of studies cited in his arguments. As the book as is almost 40 years old, I found it impossible to relate to much of the arguments.

The sad bit is that even after 40 years, much of the prejudice against Negros still remain prevalent across the US, such is the power of the liberal middle class apologists.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting deconstruction of the problematic frameworks and ideologies that prevent addressing the underlying causes of systemic poverty, racism, and injustice.

Although outdated in a number of ways (which Ryan acknowledges in an intro by suggesting that the book is best kept as an incapsulation of a given er) much of his observations are still strikingly relevant. A sad truism of the unchanged scope social inequity a half century later.

Lots to think about and a powerful framework for otherwise unreflective policy makers to chew on.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is gives me chills, it is so accurate. It was written in 1970, yet all the systems that are criticized for treating minorities unfairly (education, law) are still doing it 30 years later.

[Tanjua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book about poverty