A few weeks ago, Congressman Paul Ryan, last year’s GOP
Vice Presidential candidate, was on the receiving end of mindless accusations
of racism for citing an inner city culture as contributing to high unemployment
in such communities.
Although such responses are easily dismissed as
irresponsible leftists preferring name calling to an intelligent rejoinder, now
comes an answer from a prominent liberal columnist who attempts one.
Eugene Robinson is a longtime Washington Post columnist and frequent guest on
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough’s show. His
politics are decidedly liberal but not strident. His manner in print – and on the air – is
mild and thoughtful. So for an insight into what – and the way – a reasonable liberal
thinks, he’s worth paying attention to.
Robinson takes on Ryan’s view of culture by saying, in
essence, that the GOP leader doesn’t
understand the need for government. “The
fundamental problem that poor people have is not enough money.”
“Alleviating stubborn poverty is difficult and
expensive. Direct government aid is not
enough. Poor people need employment, job
skills and education.”
Robinson cites the lack of money to serve these needs and
views blaming culture as a cop-out:
“It’s much easier to say that culture is ultimately to
blame. But since there’s no step-by-step
procedure for changing a culture, we end up not doing anything.”
But in his heart, Robinson is not comfortable with that
response. Although he does not
acknowledge the fact, the respected liberal columnist is aware that the fifty
year old War on Poverty has largely been a failure. After the expenditure of billions and
billions of government money on social welfare, the poverty rate, which was 15%
in 1964, was 15% in 2012.
[In fairness it must be noted that the rate dropped to
the 12% range a few years after the War on Poverty until 2006 when it rose,
certainly in part to worsening economic conditions in the years from then to
the present. But it’s also appropriate
to remark that after fifty years the rate declined by only 20%.]
Robinson says he is “suspicious” that an amorphous
culture is to blame, yet spends the bulk of his column in an effort to refute
Ryan’s hypothesis.
How can the breakdown of family structure “be a cause of
high unemployment problems in inner city and other impoverished communities
when the rise out of wedlock births and single parent householders is now being
seen among whites? [the current black illegitimacy rate is 72%. Among whites the number is about 20%.] The use of illegal drugs can’t be a reason
since “young blacks and Hispanics are no more likely to be drug users than are
young whites.”
And so on.
The Post columnist
notes that there is an acute shortage of work in poor communities and, because
of globalization, and implicitly, that situation is unlikely to change because
of the education and skills necessary to participate in the new economy.
But, he concludes [surprise!], culture will take care of
itself if more money is spent on pre-school, making high quality education
available and affordable for everyone and businesses open up in target
areas.
His protests to the contrary, Eugene Robinson knows that
culture matters very much, indeed. He, a
black man, would not be where he is unless he absorbed the culture of work,
including the need to appreciate its values.
The fact that whites are also headed down the path of
family dissolution hardly changes the
fact that it is a wrong one (the reality that the white rate of disintegration
is still lower than the black level may very well be one of the reasons why
their employment is higher)!
No one can dispute that illegal drug use is a plague
among any group of people. But I suggest
that a poor, unemployed black man has enough problems in making his way in the
world without adding drug use to the mix.
By contrast, the employed, educated white user, because of his other
positive circumstances, is better able to cope.
Of course culture matters. But Robinson apparently thinks there is no
way to change it except by spending money.
This history of the War on Poverty proves that’s, ultimately, a dead
end.
Giving the poor “free” benefits and services, of course,
can provide for immediate, undeniable needs.
But it solves nothing, long-term.
What it does do, in fact, is foster a sense of dependency among its recipients. And that, in turn, rapidly is transformed
into a sense of entitlement that is part of the culture of many, if not most,
government-supported poor people. Those
who absorb that sense are not likely to be job seekers.
Yes, the problem is difficult but doing something that
might work is an appropriate beginning.
Attack the culture that stifles progress. Don’t ignore or support its existence.
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