Push Reading questions

In what way are Precious and her family members invisible to the larger world?

Precious's file reflects the government "workfare" point of view, that Precious should already be earning her own living, possibly as a home attendant. Precious objects violently to this idea. Can you understand the social worker's point of view? Have Precious's and Jermaine's arguments [pp. 121–123] changed any opinions you previously held on this subject?

 A famous—or perhaps infamous—Labor Department study, the Moynihan Report, blamed the absence of fathers and the dominance of women (rather than economic and racial inequality) for the problems confronting the African American family. Many black scholars and activists have argued against the report's conclusions. Which side of the argument do you believe Push to support?


Push has been called a Dickensian novel, to which Sapphire has responded, "Part of what's so wrong in this story is that we’re not in a Dickensian era. Those things shouldn’t be happening in a post-industrial society” (Bomb, Fall 1996). She sees the novel as “an indictment of American culture, which is both black and white” (ibid). What aspects of our culture have enabled the inequities described in the novel to develop? Would you say that contemporary American cities consist, as Dickens’s London was said to, of two entirely different cultures, the rich one and the poor?

Given the current american economic client (much worse that the economic climate in the book), do you think it's fiscally resonable and/or ethical to provide finacial support to people such as Precious to achieve high level education?