Imagine walking down a neighborhood with a deep feeling of awkwardness and emptiness from a dead silence resembling a ghost town. Flat pieces of wood board up the abandoned homes and thick grass wraps around a rusty swing set in one of the yards. Down the street a sign that reads, "Welcome to Flint," appears to be faded and hidden between dead trees. Around the 1980s, Flint, a city in Michigan, was in a catastrophe because General Motors" (GM) plant-closings led to the crisis of assembly line workers" layoffs and home evictions. Michael Moore, a former editor of Mother Jones, directed the documentary "Roger and Me" to inform viewers about GM's bad treatment towards assembly line workers. More than 20,000 of the lower class workers were eliminated from their jobs. Most of the wealthy people did not help the misfortunate and did not show any concerns for the families evicted from their homes. "Roger and Me" demonstrates how upper class societies generally ignore the lower class because they do not care that thousands of poor people were laid off from work and evicted from their homes. .
When Moore interviewed Tom Kay, a GM lobbyist, it was clear that Kay showed little concern over the lower class workers who worked for GM. Kay causally mentions how workers that were laid off should make money elsewhere because they were not needed at GM. He did not care or acknowledge the fact that they were to go through hardships right after the sudden loss of their job. Similarly, James Fallows, author of "The Invisible Poor," states that the working class is laid off for "reasons beyond their control" (365). They barely have control over anything because wealthy people usually do not treat lower class citizens with the same respect as upper class people. Kay also talks about how GM needs to stay competitive since the corporation's purpose is to make profit. In this case, they cause the working class to become poorer because of the layoff of 20,000 employees.