Word: underclass
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...been a revolution without much fanfare, but a revolution nonetheless. While the nation's attention focused on the plight of the urban underclass, millions of black Americans marched quietly into the mainstream, creating a vibrant middle class with incomes, educations and life-styles rivaling those of its white counterpart. For them, the passions and suffering of the civil rights struggle have culminated, as they were meant to, in the mundane pleasures and pangs of middle-class life. Theirs is the infrequently told success story of American race relations...
Such affronts may seem insignificant to whites, but they are reshaping the racial agenda for the next decade and beyond. The problems of the urban black underclass -- unemployment, drugs, teenage pregnancy, hopeless schools -- are more urgent than ever. But for the black middle class, there are new preoccupations. Not just job-creation programs, but job promotions. Not just high school diplomas, but college tuition. Not just picket lines, but picket fences. An agenda, in short, for a full partnership in the American Dream...
...most sensitive issues for the black middle class is its relationship to the ghetto poor. University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson has elaborated a persuasive theory suggesting that the worsening status of the underclass is inextricably tied to the flight from the inner city of most of its upwardly mobile black population. Its departure not only deprived poor youngsters of successful role models but also knocked the props from under churches, schools and other neighborhood institutions that provided stability and support for the impoverished. Middle-class flight, together with economic shifts that have resulted in a dearth...
Though they may sympathize with the tragedy of the underclass, many middle- class blacks are not prepared to remain inside the ghetto. They point out that they have worked hard to spare themselves and their families deprivation. Typical is Richard Parsons, president of the Dime Savings Bank in New York City. "Why should I live in Harlem?" asks Parsons, who resides in a wealthy Westchester County, N.Y., suburb. "If given a choice between unsafe streets and poor schools on the one hand, and peace and quiet and quality schools on the other, who wouldn't pick the best neighborhood...
...problem deserves to be seen realistically--as a disease that feeds on all levels of society. To see the influence of crack as a minority or underclass dilemma is a partial and unaceptable view of this problem. The problem, needless to say, touches...