Word: underclass
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BUSH'S inability or unwillingness to translate promising rhetoric into tangible policy can be seen on other domestic fronts as well. Relying on some vague "thousands points of light", Bush has also done virtually nothing of consequence to help the homeless and the "underclass" in America's major urban areas...
...happy to read your article "Between Two Worlds" on middle-class blacks ((LIVING, March 13)). Successful blacks increase the prosperity of America. The underclass is everyone's problem, and with an integrated and unified society we can all help solve...
Nevertheless, the decline of the underclass imposes a psychological burden, in part because whites remain far too willing to associate all blacks with welfare dependency, crime and broken families. Moreover, many middle-class blacks feel personally guilty about the unpromising prospects of poorer blacks. That may be the most unfair burden of all, since the black middle class by itself does not have nearly enough resources to lift the underclass into the mainstream. Patricia Grayson speaks for many affluent blacks when she observes, "One person can do only so much. I think it's unfair for people...
...truth is that all of the nation should feel ashamed and enraged by the sorry condition of the underclass. Its misery in the midst of an affluent society is a disgrace. While the growth and strength of the black middle class prove that the U.S. has gone far to untangle its racial conundrum, racism remains at the top of a long list of unsolved national problems. The success of middle-class blacks is mainly the product of their own hard work and tenacity. But it would not have occurred without the national consensus, embodied in civil rights legislation, to dismantle...
...life-styles rival those of their white counterparts, middle-class blacks remain in some ways second-class citizens. Even with the passage of civil rights laws, a color barrier still exists where blacks live and work. Nor has their own affluence resolved ambiguous feelings about the plight of the underclass. -- For black managers the toughest challenge is learning to be the boss. See LIVING...