Word: underclasses
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Calcutta remark was grimly amusing to Alex Kotlowitz, who wrote There Are No Children Here, the 1991 best seller about two children in a Chicago housing project. Kotlowitz notes that Mother Teresa has visited Chicago's underclass -- and was honestly shocked. "We're talking about second and third generations of children growing in communities like this. It's breaking the spiritual back of the people," he says. And each time that particular wheel is rediscovered, he notes, "we say, 'Oh, my God.' And then nothing is done...
Given the fiscal and social costs of institutionalizing an underclass from cradle to grave, it may be worth calculating the cost of such support. For now, however, there is a symbolic triumph in preventing children from being written off the moment their umbilical cords are cut. And something more than symbolism is occurring in Holland's apartment in Washington's dangerous Northeast neighborhood. A crib stands by the front door; its tenant is holding out her little arms and smiling widely, eyes as big as chestnuts. Holland scoops her up. "I love being a mother now," she says...
...Mother Teresa does more for the poor in one hour than Johnson, Carter, and Clinton, with all their programs and initiatives, have done in all their careers. Humane commitment and deep compassion cannot be replaced by a faceless government bureaucracy whose primary effect has been to create a permanent underclass dependent upon the state...
...Cisneros: I came to this job because I believe that time is running out on the American way of life as we know it. I don't want to be overly pessimistic, but how long can we go on with random killings and a permanent underclass and the homeless? I'm 46 years old, and I remember when there were no homeless people. I remember when my parents took me to Mexico and I was appalled that there were beggars and people on mats in the street. This was a Third World phenomenon. Now officials in my department...
...gingerly. BOOKS Smilla's Sense of Snow is a riveting thriller set in Denmark and Greenland. Scott Smith's first novel, A Simple Plan, needs work. Willie Morris goes golly-gee in his memoir, New York Days. CINEMA True Romance is true carnage. MUSIC A cheap shot at the underclass mars an appealing new album by Garth Brooks...