“[Gates] rehearses a Rush Limbaughesque stereotype of black poverty: ‘In general a household made up of a 16-year-old mother, a 32-year-old grandmother and a 48-year-old great-grandmother is not a site for hope and optimism.’ He polishes this argument off in fine, Victorian form, raising the spectre of the lazy, sturdy beggar: ‘It’s also true that not everyone in any society wants to work, that not all people are equally motivated. There! Was that hard to say?’ Well, no, it is not at all hard to say in Forbes.”
- Adolph Reed, W.E.B. Du Bois and American Political Thought: Fabianism and the Color Line.
