# Excerpt from "The Lives of Poor White People" by Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker



## William Howard 2 (Sep 18, 2017)

So some quick political science stuff for context.

"Framing the issue is half the battle" is the mantra they teach law students. The following excerpt is the start of the article - and we also know from writing that the beginning sets the tone and the mood for the rest of the piece. In other words, the starting story sets a slant in the minds of the readers with which they view everything else. Try and see through what seems as be a very positive, heroic story and see the darker, more manipulative aspects the author choose to use.

What did you find? What effects do what some have called "social fictions and myths" about success stories have on understanding poverty?

"I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember.” That’s how J. D. Vance begins one of this campaign season’s saddest and most fascinating books, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” (Harper). Vance was born in Kentucky and raised by his grandparents, as a self-described “hillbilly,” in Middletown, Ohio, home of the once-mighty Armco Steel. His family struggled with poverty and domestic violence, of which he was a victim. His mother was addicted to drugs—first to painkillers, then to heroin. Many of his neighbors were jobless and on welfare. Vance escaped their fate by joining the Marines and serving in Iraq. Afterward, he attended Ohio State and Yale Law School, where he was mentored by Amy Chua, the law professor and tiger mom. He now lives in San Francisco, where he works at Mithril Capital Management, the investment firm helmed by Peter Thiel. It seems safe to say that Vance, who is now in his early thirties, has seen a wider swath of America than most people.


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