Word: inner
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Blacks have never been afforded equal opportunity. First, they are hemmed into segregated neighborhoods with poorly-funded schools. Second, they are passed over in job searches because employers consciously exclude applicants from inner-city neighborhoods. Third, and above all, they are hurt by employers' reliance on informal hiring networks--such as recommendations from friends and co-workers--rather than on formal employment agencies seeking to place minorities into the work force...
Thus, the talented black inner-city resident who lacks access to "the good ol' boy network" plays by the rules and loses. Even in neighborhoods with ample job opportunities, like Chicago's West Side, blacks are the last ones hired to fill vacant positions. "It's not where you live in relation to the job," says Wiener Professor of Public Policy David T. Ellwood '75. "It's where you live in relation to your employer...
This is the America in which we live. Yet through this gloomy reality, there are rays of hope. The obvious solution is to assist inner-city blacks via school desegregation and relocation of families into the suburbs. Such a court-ordered program in Chicago was directly credited for increased employment, wages and school performance of participants. But given America's latent racism, the long-term viability of any dispersal program is doubtful...
...Harvard devoted to adult education, empowering its adult students, many of whom are supporting families, with literacy and job skills. PEN is one of many volunteer organizations that benefit from some government funding. This year, for example, the HOPE 6 fund, an initiative devoted to taking on certain selected inner-city communities and pumping resources into them, is in part responsible for the success of our program at Mission Hill. But HOPE 6 is only money. Adult education classes are taught by people...
...HOPE 6 is scrapped--be it by Republicans or Democrats--we, as Americans, are fully capable of replacing every penny eliminated by Washington with a dollar of manpower through personal action in inner-city neighborhoods, through volunteer education and empowerment. You may stand on either side of the political spectrum. But regardless, your right--and privilege--to do your part to make America the kind of place you'd like it to be is not cut off with the funding...