This isn't just a black issue. Every day at lunchtime in downtown Seattle, I hop on the bus or walk down the street and see dozens of people - white, black, Hispanic, Indian - even Asian - who very much appear to be part of a permanent underclass. They are often alcoholic, often drug-addicted, often mentally ill, but sometimes merely "unemployable" - so far out of the mainstream that it is almost impossible to imagine anyone hiring them for any job. I suppose this is nothing new - "the poor you will always have with you" - but it seems that their chances are in some ways worse than ever. This is a society where image and slickness mean everything, and where opportunities for manual labor are diminishing. I don't know what the solution is. And perhaps there's even a danger in looking for a "solution" - Hitler's "solution" was simply to exterminate all of the "unfit".
Do you think that there was not always this element, that is is just the color that has changed?
What do you sugtgest we "do" about it/ More government intervention.
This sort of "underclass" rhetoric is just a trojan horse for socialism. In fact, the term "underclass" comes right from the jargon of Marxism.