J.D. Vance grew up in a small, poor city in the Rust Belt of southern Ohio, where he had a front-row seat to many of the social ills plaguing America: a heroin epidemic, failing schools, families torn apart by divorce and sometimes violence. In a searching talk that will echo throughout the country’s working-class towns, the author details what the loss of the American Dream feels like and raises an important question that everyone from community leaders to policy makers needs to ask: How can we help kids from America’s forgotten places break free from hopelessness and live better lives?
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Interesting, Ted Talks about Social Justice
America’s forgotten working class | J.D. Vance
March 20, 2017
More from this series:
- The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Islamophobia killed my brother. Let’s end the hate | Suzanne Barakat
- A prosecutor’s vision for a better justice system | Adam Foss
- How we talk about sexual assault online | Ione Wells
- An artist’s unflinching look at racial violence | Sanford Biggers
- It’s time for women to run for office | Halla Tómasdóttir
- America’s forgotten working class | J.D. Vance
- An interview with the founders of Black Lives Matter | Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi
- Why gun violence can’t be our new normal | Dan Gross