Word: ghettoes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Probably the crudest dilemma facing the new middle class is their relationship with blacks left behind in the ghetto. It is natural enough for the middle class to pull out of the slums once they can afford to-just as other ethnic groups have done. But by leaving, they abandon those who cannot escape the ghetto to its more rapacious elements, aggravating the spread of crime and decay. Small wonder that middle-class blacks feel some guilt and ambivalence about fleeing to better neighborhoods...
...government at Harvard. He has charged that college-admissions officials have been discriminating against middle-class black youths in the interest of recruiting poor blacks-an attitude that he says is based on the quixotic notion that the genuine black experience is only to be found in the ghetto. As a result, said Kilson, some of the most prestigious colleges in the country have been accepting ill-prepared militants who divert more qualified students from their studies...
Even if they wanted to escape responsibility to the ghetto, middle-class blacks would not be able to do so. Only a few years out of the ghetto themselves, most have left close friends and relatives behind. Beyond that, many middle-class doctors, lawyers, building contractors and storekeepers have clients in the ghetto. Says Robert Perkins, a partner in a New Orleans architectural firm that designs its largest projects for the poor: "I can't forget who I am dealing with since I have to go back to them. They are our clout...
Particularly in the South, many middle-class people continue to live in the ghetto. In Winston-Salem, N.C., Alderman Charles C. Ross, a successful businessman, elects to remain in the neat white clapboard home that he bought in 1947. "Staying here," he explains, "is my way of saying to other blacks: 'You can make it if you try hard enough...
...black underclass has scored some surprising gains in housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reports sharp declines since 1960 in both overcrowding in black ghetto housing and in the number of houses and apartments without complete plumbing...