There are millions more, living slightly above the poverty line, whose plight is not much better.
Also, the social services in the U.S compare unfavorably with those in most industrialized societies.
4. Crime
Former President Nixon said that crime is America’s “number one enemy”. In 1970s, he was involved in the Watergate scandal, for which he was forced to resign from the presidency.
Americans are primarily a nation of immigrants, who or whose ancestors came from many parts of the globe.
---1. some as refugees from religious and political persecution (逃避宗教和政治迫害的难民)
Furthermore, the affluent majority seems indifferent to the problems of the poor. This raises some serious moral problems and inevitably creates fierce conflicts of interest and many political controversies.
1.2 Discrimination Against Blacks
Discrimination against blacks: In American society, any group other than the dominant white Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority is a minority group. The largest of the racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. is the blacks who make up about 11.7% of the population. The myth of their racial inferiority was propagated as a justification for their continued subjugation. (所谓黑人种族低 劣的神话被广泛传播，并以此 作为永远奴役黑人的借口)
1.3 A short history of African American
The Northern states had all outlawed (废除) slavery by 1830, but in the Southern states, it was ended by the Civil War Lincoln’s emancipation of slaves in 1863 (1863年林肯颁布的《解放黑奴宣 言》) and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 （1865年 美国通过的第13条宪法修正案）
Content
1. Racial Problems 2. Poverty as a social problem 3. Drug Abuse (滥用毒品) 4. Crime 5. the abuse of power 滥用职权
1. Racial Problems
1.1 a nation of immigrants
2. Poverty as a social problem
The U.S is one of the most wealthy countries in the world. Yet over 24 million people or about 10% of the population are living at or below the official poverty line, on incomes that the federal government considers insufficient to meet basic requirement of food, clothing, and shelter.
(2) Blacks felt that “black is beautiful”. (3) Blacks felt more and more proud of
themselves
the Black “Underclass
The majority of the blacks today have failed to share in the general gains(收获) of progress made recently. The urban ghettosnow contain a permanently impoverished (贫穷 的)“underclass” of habitually unemployed or underemployed black people. Many of them are young and unskilled. They live in cities where the unemployment rate for teenage black workers runs as high as 50% or about 8 times the rate for the American work force as a whole. This “underclass” could continue to persist, even in the absence of racial discrimination, in much the same way as other pockets of poverty persist— that is, for reasons of social-class inequality. Living in an environment of poverty, decay, crime, drug addiction, joblessness, and hopelessness, this gtential for the future.
Chapter 10 Social Problems in the
United States
Revision
2. Background 3. Definition of it 4. The Civil Rights Movement 5. The Youth Movement 6. Women’s Liberation Movement
3. Drug Abuse (滥用毒品)
Drug abuse in the U.S. has come to be regarded as one of the most challenging social problems facing the nation. The drug issue always excites strong emotions of Americans because drug abuse is perceived as a major threat to American society, particularly to its younger members. Drug abuse is a social problem because it has a wide range of social costs.
Sixteenth President 1861-1865
After 1960s, many American blacks began to have a new mood
(1) Blacks felt that the black community ought to coexist with other groups.
Though people all share a common American culture, the nation contains many racial and ethnic subcultures with their own distinctive characteristics. (虽然人们有共同的美国文化，但 美利坚民族包含了许多种族和少 数民族的亚文化群)。These differences have contributed to racial conflicts that have been a persistent social problem to American society.（这些差异造 成了在美国社会长期存在的种族 冲突）
---2. some as adventurers from the Old World seeking a better life(从旧大陆来寻求好生活的冒险 家)
---3. some as captives brought to American against their own will to be sold into slavery （有一些则是 被抓获后违背他们的意愿运到美国， 被出卖为奴隶）
Drug is closely related with
a. crime, b. automobile
accidents c. serious effects on
individuals physically and mentally d. the economic losses caused by drug abuse are great.