It seems like people are getting hung up on being offended by the wording of the article rather than the message.
The reason for that is that French is now thinking of making the jump from writer to politician. And whereas writers can employ that "literary license" to make a point, we all know that politicians get crunched for saying things that are offensive, even if the underlying point has merit. Remember Romney's 47%?
Would you feel better if the guy stated how unfair the situation was? How difficult the course was going to be? Are we 5 year olds or are we adults? Adults shouldn't need attaboys to do the right thing.
No. But I'd feel a lot better if his article had started off with something like:
"A great many white, blue collar Americans have been working very hard to make the transition to a new economy, and have raised proud families who serve in our military, build our products, earn their part of the American Dream. But too often, there are others who have not accepted that personal responsibility. Too often, they give up when faced with adversity, etc. etc. etc."
That's my point. If you're going to launch a broadside at a group that you've defined by race and education, then you owe it to individuals in that group not to lump them all together. He didn't do that even after readers complained that the article was offensive. At that point, why
not make it clear that you were only talking about a dysfunctional subgroup of that population? He couldn't even be bothered to do that.
