Birth of the Ghetto Blues
Critics will say you're blaming the victim.
The people who think that black poverty and its manifestations are all about racism would be very surprised if they could go back in a time machine to a black slum in 1920. They would find a place where the two-parent family was still the norm, where alcoholism and drug addiction existed on the margins of the neighborhood. Where almost every able-bodied person was employed. Now, these places weren't paradises by any means. But when black people were hanging regularly from trees and segregation was the law of the land, black slums held together. That has changed. Over the past 40 years, black slums have become war zones. We have to ask why--without falling into the trap of supposing that "why"must always be about racism and discrimination.
You're clearly a fan of welfare reform. What else should be done?
For one thing, people who are having their five-year welfare stint should have much better child care. People who were tempted into that lifestyle tend to have a lot of kids, and the kids aren't going to go away immediately. I would focus our ideas away from waiting for an apocalypse and instead focus on locally driven efforts to help people left behind help themselves.
Your book is called Winning the Race. Can the race be won?
Yes, but we have to get used to the idea that getting past the crisis in black America is not going to include getting back at the white man. The payback fantasies have to go. If someone runs someone over with a car, the driver cannot make the victim learn to walk again. Ultimately, the victim has to play a major part in learning to use the muscles again. The driver can only help.
Could you make these arguments if you were white?
No, if I weren't black it would be much harder, and I wouldn't have so many people listening, so I'm glad I'm black because it gives me a path to tell the truth.
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