Word: inner
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ashes came pious promises from politicians and the rhetoric of renewed resolve. "The only genuine long-range solution for what has happened lies in an attack -- mounted at every level -- upon the conditions that breed despair and violence," proclaimed President Lyndon Johnson. No one seriously thought the inner city could be transformed overnight. But few were cynical enough to envision what actually happened: an entire generation would pass as life in the black ghettos of a rich nation went from bad to almost unimaginably worse...
What went wrong for the 4 million black Americans still trapped in festering inner-city ghettos? Why do one-third of all black families remain mired in poverty? Why is the jobless rate for black teenagers 40%? Why are 60% of all black children born out of wedlock? And why has the American ghetto become a self-perpetuating nightmare of fatherless children, welfare dependency, crime, gangs, drugs and despair...
...provided a mix of black social classes, now residents are bound together under the yoke of poverty and impoverished aspirations. In a forthcoming book, The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson argues that those who have been left behind in the ghetto have inherited not "a culture of poverty but social isolation." Inner-city residents can go weeks without encountering anyone, black or white, who is a middle-class achiever...
...lack of jobs for young black men translates into a lack of ability for them to take responsibility for the children they father. This, Wilson argues, helps explain the staggering growth of inner-city illegitimacy. A recent study by the Children's Defense Fund found that 90% of all babies of black teenage mothers are born out of wedlock. As Harriette McAdoo, professor of social work at Howard University, puts it, "Men are unable to maintain themselves in the labor market, and they are unable to maintain their families...
Twenty years of failed programs, from community development to public housing, point to a depressing conclusion: little will be done to make the ghetto an acceptable place to live and raise children. This by no means suggests abandoning those trapped in the inner city. Rather, the emphasis of both government and private philanthropy must be on helping the black underclass escape the social isolation of these inner-city wastelands. What successes there have been come not through cosmetically improving the ghettos but by providing residents with opportunities through jobs and education to rise out of them. Saving people, not inner...