(10 of 10)
Another program partially bankrolled by private money is tenant management, in which residents, after receiving training, take charge of public housing projects and work actively to provide themselves with a better living environment (see box). The performance in seven cities is spotty, but the results are a definite improvement over the dismal record of many other subsidized housing communities.
More black leaders are beginning to make the point that in spite of the continuing racism that is still a barrier to opportunities, the underclass must help itself out of its morass. In his pulpit style, Chicago's the Rev. Jesse Jackson, head of the Operation PUSH self-help group, says: "It is bad to be in the slum, but it is worse when the slum is in you. The spiritual slum is the ultimate tragedy. The victimizer is responsible for us being down, but the victim is responsible for us getting up." Jackson has called for neighborhood volunteers to replace police in patrolling ghetto schools and street corners, has launched a drive for black parents to monitor strictly their children's homework and schooling, and has urged that voter registration cards be handed to each high school graduate along with a diploma. Says he: "Nobody will save us from us but us."
Nothing has yet replaced individual incentive in U.S. society, and nothing ever will. But more than a century ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne observed: "In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of social life, somebody is always at the drowning point." Ever since then, successive generations of aspiring Americans have lifted themselves well above that despairing level.
The underclass will find that harder to do, given its painful heritage. Encouraging incentive in the underclass, and overcoming the barriers of racism, could take just five or ten years; more likely, the tasks will require a generation or more. The entire society—business, government and ordinary citizens—will have to chip away at the problems. The alternative to progress would be more desperation, hostility, violence and disaffection within the underclass. That is something even the world's wealthiest country would find difficult to afford.