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From: alien@gcc-opus.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: A statistic on poverty
Message-ID: <170@gcc-opus.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 20:26:44 EST
Article-I.D.: gcc-opus.170
Posted: Sun Dec 16 20:26:44 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 02:55:11 EST
References: <2780@ucbcad.UUCP> <1203@dciem.UUCP> <1341@ihuxq.UUCP> <369@klipper.UUCP> <161@gcc-opus.ARPA> <1132@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Reply-To: alien@gcc-opus.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Organization: General Computer Company, Cambridge Ma (creators of Ms. Pacman)
Lines: 114
Summary: 

>issue associated with poverty in this country: The incidence
>of poverty shows that RACISM and SEXISM is alive and well in
>the United States!
 
Thanks for posting the statistics, though I am pretty sure they are the ones
that don't include food stamps as income in determining poverty.  Of course,
the disparity between black and white wouldn't be anywhere nearly as large if
they did, since the percentage of blacks on food stamps is much larger than
the percentage of blacks in the population as a whole.

But that is not what I wanted to reply to.  Your quote above is something that
I hear quite often, particularily on TV news, and it galls me.

RACISM and SEXISM are thoughts, deeds, and perceptions that one group of people
have toward another group of people that they consider *different*.  Taking a
look at a set of statistics about the economic welfare of groups of people and
saying that it shows various ISM's is an absurd (though popular) abuse of 
statistics.

Let me give some extreme examples.

Statistics show that the following groups of people are generally worse off
than the average:
	- Married heads of households under 25
	- Single heads of households
	- Households with over 5 children
	- Elderly
	- People with chronic health problems
	- Descendants of poor people
Does this mean that discrimination against these groups of people is 'alive and
well'?

Now, I won't deny that there IS still racism and sexism around.  I would be 
either a fool or blind if I did.  But let me point out some other factors 
which influence the higher black poverty level:
	- The higher incidence of single parenthood
	- The higher percentage of school drop-outs
	- The larger percentage of poor parents (with all the boot-strapping
		problems that entails)
	- The larger families

Another point, a group which has clearly suffered from much discrimination in
the US is the Jewish community.  But yet, their demographics are better than
national average.  Why were they able to climb above the obstacles?  Probably
the biggest factor is the Jewish culture's strong values of hard work and 
education.  Contrast this with the over 50% high school drop-out rate of
blacks in most urban cities.

Now, I am hardly going to characterize blacks as shiftless and lazy.  As with
any other group, some are and some aren't.  And a growing number of blacks do
get ahead these days, which is good to see.  However, STATISTICALLY, the black
culture does not put as much of an emphesis on basic education as the population
as a whole does.  (I am basing this statement on results of standardized tests,
high school drop-out rates, literacy rates.)  Now, there was a growing sentiment
in the 60s that this was OK, that the black culture had different values than
the white culture does and trying to use the same standards for the two groups
was wrong, that blacks were doing an injustice to their heritage if they strived
toward white ideals.

Go tell that to the employer who just isn't interested in hiring a functional
illiterate.

This is a very basic problem, and all of the good will, intentions, and social
programs in the world are not going to help someone who won't help himself.
And the problem is cyclical and reinforcing.  A group doesn't consider basic
education important, so the children don't apply themselves at school.  The
school collapses because the kids spend more effort avoiding work than learning.
The kids can't learn, because the school is no good.  Everyone gets the idea
that education is unimportant because the kids don't learn anything from it ...

So now, how about a pat solution?  I don't have one.  But it has to start from
the bottom.  Bussing typically doesn't help because the kids tend to segregate
themselves, and get their values from their peers of the same group.  I suspect
that making private child-raising illegal and having everyone raised by the 
state would do wonders, but I would hardly recommend it (all the kids would 
end up fucked up, instead of most of them).

There are only two things that can break a chain like this:
	1)  Somehow have the group in question uniformly adopt a set of values
which are strongly economically oriented.  Some things that would help:
		* Stable families, low divorce rate, no single parents
		* Small families
		* Education and hard work strongly valued
		* Entire life of parents geared toward childrens future
How do you get a group of people to endorse values like these?  Damn if I 
know, and I don't think it would be right to force it on them if I did.
	2)  Eliminate racism to the point where the concept of race disappears,
to the point that skin color is like hair color.  This would, of course, mean
the disappearance of blacks, hispanics, etc as distinct ethnic groups with any
form of separate values or heritage.  This is what I think will eventually
happen, as it did with the large Italian, Irish, German, English, etc minorities
we used to have.  Sure, there are still people who consider themselves of, say,
Irish descent in the US, but their number pales compared with the number of
people with some Irish blood that just consider themselves Americans.  The key
to seeing this happen is inter-racial marriages.  They are on the rise, but
they are still rare.

Until then, what do you do?  My suggestion is to try to help those really
needy without creating programs which re-inforce a 'welfare state mentality'.
Workfare is my favorite.  Make any able bodied welfare recipient work for their
check.  Even if it is just make work.  The benefits are three-fold:
	- You at least make them feel they are working for the benefit instead
of the government 'owing' them the money.
	- You might, just might, give them some sort of job skill or work ethic.
	- Someone will think a lot harder about a minimum wage job at a fast
food joint if their alternative is poorly paid work instead of a paid vacation.

Up here in Nashua NH we have a pilot workfare program, but I don't know how
long it will last.  It seems the Democrats are all up in arms, saying that it
is 'demeaning' and 'unjust' to those who are 'unfortunate enough' to require
government aid.  Since southern NH is pretty Democratic (probably the proximity
and number of refugees from MA), I suspect its days are numbered.  Oh well.

					Alien