The speech made by the former president, Barrack Obama, on the state of the country’s economy back in December 6, 2011, generated a lot of talks, especially pertaining to the ever growing gap between the rich and the poor in the American society. Among the people who reacted to this revelation include Gene Marks, a Forbes magazine contributor who wrote an article by the title “If I Were A Poor Black Kid”. In the article, tried to offer advice to poor black kids having a time in realizing their dreams of getting out of the poverty that currently surrounds them. The article was however controversial and was met by dozens of responses from authors from different backgrounds. One of the most notable among the responses was the article written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, titled “A Muscular Empathy.
The article draws mainly from the slavery background of the South to illustrate how people, Marks included, are quick to claim or suggest solutions that from their point of view would work instantaneously to fix a complex problem. Equating the modern day poverty experienced by black people to the slavery of the antebellum south, the article illustrates how people tend to see the alternatives to an issue without considering the reasons that led to the issue at hand in the first place.