Oops
Paul Ryan: That's not what I meant when I said 'inner-city' men are lazy
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Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) new focus on poverty isn't going so well. In a radio interview Wednesday, Ryan bemoaned a "culture problem" in the nation's inner cities of men choosing not to work because they're lazy. "We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work," he said.
Naturally, many accused Ryan of using "inner city" as a substitute for race. He did, after all, cite Charles Murray, a social scientist who has claimed white people have a genetic advantage over other races. So on Thursday, Ryan clarified his remark, saying he was "inarticulate" and was "not implicating the culture of one community — but of society as a whole."
"We have allowed our society to isolate or quarantine the poor rather than integrate people into our communities," he said in a statement. "The predictable result has been multi-generational poverty and little opportunity."