Here is the problem.
Millions of African-Americans took advantage of
the opportunities created by the civil rights movement to climb into the middle
class — and in some cases far beyond, as exemplified by President Obama.
Yet millions of other black Americans did not
reach the middle class. This group, mired in poverty and dysfunction, finds the
paths others took are blocked. They live in neighborhoods with failing schools
that cannot prepare them for today’s economy. Secure, high-paying blue-collar
jobs are a thing of the past.
Increasingly, these African-Americans who were
left behind are invisible. Their neighborhoods either get gentrified — which
means they can no longer afford to stay there — or simply bypassed by
development. What happens in poor black neighborhoods has less and less to do
with the everyday lives of middle-class Americans, white or black.
Eugene Robinson: The ones left behind
What are the solutions?
Literacy! Academic Tutoring! Cultural Mentoring! Also billions of dollars and other resources
that will end the poverty, dysfunction, and crime in lower income African
American (Black) neighborhoods?
Marc
Sims
Chicago
marcsimschicago@gmail.com
