Spot on. Black poverty is the result of 30 years of misguided welfare rather than racism, says John McWhorter As it quickly became clear that there was a certain demographic skew among the people stranded in New Orleans, journalists began intoning that Hurricane Katrina had stripped bare the continuing racial inequity in America. The extent to which this was hidden is unclear, actually. An awareness that a tragic disproportion of black Americans are poor has been a hallmark of civic awareness among educated Americans for 40 years now. The problem is less a lack of awareness than a lack of understanding. The publicly sanctioned take is that “white supremacy” is why 80% of New Orleans’s poor people are black. The civics lesson, we are to think, is that the civil rights revolution left a job undone in an America still hostile to black advancement. In fact, white America does remain morally culpable — but because white leftists in the late 1960s, in the name of enlightenment and benevolence, encouraged the worst in human nature among blacks and even fostered it in legislation. The hordes of poor blacks stuck in the Superdome last week wound up there not because the White Man barred them from doing better, but because certain tragically influential White Men destroyed the fragile but lasting survival skills poor black communities had maintained since the end of slavery. more
Thumbs down to McWho, on every front... Oh no...not McWho. It's important to know Where McWho comes from, and what, exactly, he represents. McWho works for the Manhattan Institute; from their website: ...We have won new respect for market-oriented policies and helped make reform a reality... IOW, they are out to make you act, see, and live the "everything's economic" lifestyle, reducing yourself to consumer, and making everything for sale...pathological. More: ...Combining intellectual seriousness and practical wisdom with intelligent marketing and focused advocacy, the Manhattan Institute has achieved a reputation for effectiveness far out of proportion to its resources... And it's wisdom, it must be added. American economic analysis that begins with reduction (reducing humanity to "human=economic man/woman") always, by definition, misses the historical, cultural, political, anthropological, sociological and other non-economic aspects of analyzing anything. That applies here, is typical of the M.I., and deserving of our derision for such attempted reduction of that very thing that is unique and irreducible, except when we allow dopey, dippy hacks like McWho to do so, in the name of issue clarification, no less.
Watch out Ian. Liberals will be calling you a troll even though the premise of the article is fundamentally sound. What has killed the black community is not racism but misguided governmental programs. Anybody who can argue otherwise is not looking at the facts. For the last 30+ years, money and governmental programs have been foisted onto the black communities. The results are clear. So sad and tragic that so many lives have been ruined while white liberals live in gated communities.
I'd say the crack epidemic ********ed up Black America more than welfare. I'd say welfare has been a net plus for the Black community, as this concept of "generations" of welfare recipients has been grossly overstated. And the idea of white liberals living in gated community is a fecking canard, and you know it. The overwhelming majority of union members vote Democratic; tell me what gated community they live in? I'm not stupid enough to suggest that all Republicans are rich white people, so don't be equally stupid.
Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, seriously,You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Right: You're the racist Left: No, You're the racist Great.
Well, we could still make it economic if you chose. The black middle class disappears as big business takes their manufacturing jobs further and further from the city boundaries, finally shipping them overseas. The inner city rots, and THEN you have the crack epidemic. So as the wealth gap widens, so does the gap between upper class blacks and lower class. But, hey, blame it on welfare. Conservatives been doing it for decades without any legs to stand on. Why should they stop now? Stop the free flow of money across US borders, and adopt sensible, job saving national policies like much of Europe has and perhaps we can bring back the middle class as a whole and benefit black people in the process. Everyone needs a stepping stone.
And after reading that whole regurgitation, I came across not one single fact to back it up. I can point to plenty of crack-brained theories that can't be backed up by empirical evidence. Ooh, look, here's another one!
I think GringoTex lives in a gated community. http://www.cluthadc.govt.nz/Web Pag...ltural/Cows at Milking by Julie Mathieson.jpg Oh, wait, not him personally.
A strange mish-mash of an article. There's some truth in there... a simplification, yes, but there's likely to be truth in that. Where it really falls over is stuff like this... ah yes, the old "the poor are poor because they are lazy" logic favoured by right-wingers everywhere. sound like complete made-up bollocks to me Again, the right wing myth that living on benefits is a lifestyle anyone would aspire to. Of course, is he saying this because he's really concerned about the poor? Of course not, the real issue is that he's paying for it. Or to cut to the chase "welfare is a really really bad thing isn't it and if we gave them nothing I'm sure they'd be better off. We'd also be able to keep more of our money through paying less tax. The underprivileged have it far too easy don't they?"
Uh...no. For the last 30+ years, money and governmental programs have been foisted onto V-22 Osprey technology, not black communities. These types of comments, from you and the author, indicate something very simple; you don't know any poor blacks, or nowhere near enough. You operate in utter ignorance. Reducing those folks (and everyone else not in or near the ownership or political classes) to economic dimensions solely, which is what the M.I. does in fact do generally, and McWho specifically, fails us all in subsequent analysis, allowing for the same type of sweeping talking-point inanity you offer in the above quote; a statement that seems to spring from some sourcework, but, actually, just springs from a TAKE on black communities indifferent in any practical sense to hatred for the humanity of those communities.
The black community is the most at-risk community. When the breakdown of the family started, their communities suffered disproportionately. The question is how can we make it better. For many of you on here who lambast me, what should we do? There have been success stories of blacks moving up, but for the the vast majority the situation has regressed. I wonder how many people on here actually have done something tangible for these at-risk communities other than complaining about how the government does not care. Have you ever gone down and spent real time in these communities? A lot of people talk about the war of drugs being a failure. You could also make the argument that the war of poverty has failed as well. I am not cold hearted as you guys think. I truly want the situation to change, but am also leery about sending more money to programs that have at best minimal impact.
That's the problem - you think welfare has failed because it hasn't made them upwardly mobile. That was never the point of welfare - its point is purely to help out the least privileged in society by giving them money that they'd have had no other means of getting, to allow them live life with at least a minimum degree of dignity. Anyone who thinks living on welfare is an easy life should ask themselves if they'd be happy living on welfare payments with no other income or savings for a year, and in the crappiest part of town.
My experience is twofold; one, my widely extended family, which straddles that divide between, for all definitive extents and purposes, upper middle class and upper underclass; two, my own experience since about 1989 has been to tutor HS students (West Philly and many others since then) and direct recreation (activity, towards such becoming autotelic) in communities mainly black, mainly in need of such. For me, the "solution" begins with communities conceiving of themselves as wholly outside the current consensus framework of what community entails, from land use to education to food intake/urban gardening to media relationships to spirituality to economics. Do you know Brother Bey in D.C.? That "All of Us or None" approach, that grassroots convergence, is the beginning of the framework I'm talking about. That begins with, and extends with, reconceptions of humanity, imv. On the part of all parties, themselves all part of this other illusion that human=economic...
The current situation for African Americans boils down I think several things: 1) historic poverty/slavery (started in a weak position) 2) movement from rural to urban areas when the suburbs were growing and inner cities were dying 3) historicly last hired/first fired 4) public housing/welfare policies basicly concentrated poverty, and destroyed family units 5) war on drugs not only created an illicit, destructive urban economy, but it incarcerated large numbers of black males
There have been problems with how welfare has been administered, but the lack of opportunities can make welfare a negative. If there are few job prospects, and you dont need to work to survive, what you worry about is that they simply give up on work, not because they dont want to but because they feel its not for them, and fear is no longer a motivator (not my favorite, but thats not the point). Jobs are for "other people". Im not opposed to welfare, but the expansion of economic opportunities is critical. Unfortunately though at this stage many black communities are so devastated that its far more complicated.
So then wouldn't welfare money be better spent if it was sent to local community groups and invested within, rather than given to people directly? just a thought
"When the breakdown of the family started..." What, is this phenomena fully understood by you? The question raised by this post was NOT how can we make it better, but why survival measures for poor people take money out of rich people's pockets. And the asinine point of this thread was to blame that on welfare. The point of this thread was that the government spent too much time and money caring. Are you arguing for more of same? I spent 20 years living in one. Is that good enough for you? You make the mistake of assuming they are unrelated. Also, the War on Poverty accomplished many of its era-specific goals--but the era has changed and we face many new problems. To me, this is like Drug Court proponents proclaiming that Proposition 36 "didn't work". It worked perfectly, doing exactly what it was supposed to do, increasing spending on treatment and keeping low level offenders out of jail. The fact that it didn't do what Drug Court proponents wanted it to do (decrease recidivism, improve family structure, and usher in an age of Eden in California) is irrelevant. If welfare can temporarily keep people off the streets and alive, then it is doing its job. To lambast it for not turning out surgeons and attorneys, aiding in the creation of jobs, and improving the family structure is a straw man, and credits welfare goals with grandiose notions that were never in evidence. If you want to do those other things, and I do, lets talk about how to do it, and what programs designed for those goals aren't working. But welfare ain't got nothing to do with it.
Yeah, especially evangelical churches! Also, abstinence eduction through church groups is the best way to spend that money.
In theory it's a nice idea, but unless those community groups can provide the abililty for everyone to work for a living, which there's no way at all they'll be able to do, then you'll just have unefficient community groups wasting money while the poor will be poorer than ever.