nd social outcomes, it is hardly surprising that no meaningful changes in such behavior and social outcomes occur.
By shifting the focus of the issue from one of a problem to one of black achievement, any hope of delving into the problems of the underclass and developing solutions to those problems is effectively made impossible. Rather, the affected members of the racial and ethnic minority groups are persuaded that all of their problems stem from the surrounding society that is dominated by the racial and ethnic majority, and that they, the racial and ethnic minorities not only bear no responsibility for their own behaviors, but that they also cannot be castigated for those behaviors.
Wilson points out, as an example, that the black unemployment rate in 1948 was less than half the black employment rate in 1980. Yet, as Wilson also points out, no one would claim that the discrimination against blacks in the United States in 1980 was greater than the level of such discrimination in the late 1940s. Similarly, it can be pointed out that the rate of criminal activity among blacks in the late 1940s was far less than it is in the contemporary United States. Yet, the level of discrimination, both de jure and de facto, against blacks in the United States is far less in 1992 than it was in 1948.
A Neanderthal politician such as David Duke and an equally backward looking sociologist could, thus, argue that the solution to the problems of racial and ethnic minorities lies in a return to greater discrimination both de jure and de facto. No reasonable person would endorse such a proposal. Similarly, no reasonable person should endorse the contention that racial and ethnic minority persons in the United States are not wholly responsible for their own behavior, and that such persons bear some of the responsibility for the undesirable social outcomes that affect them.
The concept of the underclass is valid. In the contemporary Uni...