The White Underclass
Does the rise in out-of-wedlock babies and white slums foretell a social catastrophe
In two important respects, white and black ghettos are similar no matter how they are defined. Mincy's tabulations show that both white and black underclass areas are filled with men who abandoned the work force and residents who dropped out of high school. In 1990, in the typical "bad behavior" white underclass tract, 55 percent of the men did not participate in the work force and 42 percent of the residents had dropped out of school; the corresponding figures for black tracts were 62 percent and 36 percent. However, black underclass areas are still more likely to have female-headed families and residents on welfare; in the average black tract, 71 percent of the families were headed by women, but in the white one, 53 percent were.
To locate white underclass neighborhoods, U.S. News used a conservative definition: urban areas of at least two contiguous census tracts where a majority of residents were non-Hispanic whites, where 40 percent or more of the residents lived in poverty and where more than 300 white, female-headed families with children resided. From that universe, U.S. News identified the 15 underclass areas that had the highest rates of female-headed families, the best proxy available in census figures for unwed motherhood (table, Page 41).
The atmosphere. From city to city, white underclass neighborhoods look much the same. Most do not contain high-rise housing projects or chockablock tenements. Instead, the streets look innocuously decrepit, filled with row houses with peeling paint and an occasional abandoned house. On warm nights, groups of men can sometimes be seen drinking on street corners or in parks, congregating in taverns or kibitzing on front stoops. An occasional prostitute may wander by to solicit her johns.
Inside the row houses, young mothers, sometimes joined by their parents, pursue lives of cigarettes, television and Nintendo. The apartment walls often sport cheap reproductions of portraits of Jesus or Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. Commercial strips are lined with bars, small grocery stores, pawnshops and liquor outlets, but the neighborhoods nonetheless feel isolated from the rest of the city, cut off by railroad tracks, rivers, highways or industrial areas.
Roy Church--he was too embarrassed to use his real name--couldn't believe how sour it had all turned. A native Detroiter, he met his wife in 1970 when she moved from rural Kentucky. For 20 years, he worked as a rail inspector for Conrail. Then he was diagnosed with diabetes, he was laid off and his family collapsed. His four children dropped out of school around the seventh grade. His three daughters, all eventually on welfare or disability, bore eight children out of wedlock. At 47, Church, along with his wife, was temporarily caring for most of their grandchildren, since their own daughters were plagued by drug addiction or mental illness.
This southwest neighborhood always had its toughs, but not white gangs like those there now. Al's Lounge, an old haunt of Hungarian workers, is boarded up, the walls covered with gang emblems. Several largely white "crews," such as the Cash Flow Posse and the Square Boys, patrol the streets like vigilante Guardian Angels, keeping outside troublemakers away. Everyone knows the Cash Flow Posse bangs to the left, meaning they cock their hats to the left, roll up their left pant cuffs and display bandannas in their left pockets. Most nights, Church heard gunfire. Then, three weeks ago, he died of complications from diabetes. Five days later, his wife finally raised enough money from relatives to pay for his funeral.
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