I spent over 11 years of my life working for an organization whose mission was (and still is) to improve the lives of families and people living in the economically poor communities of a run-down Eastern city. The families and people living in these communities are mostly “people of color”, largely African-American but also some Hispanic and Carribean-Afro heritage mixed in. As a younger man, I wanted to devote at least some portion of my life and its energies into changing the world, fighting injustices, and “making real” the religious beliefs and values that my parents had instilled within me. (Obviously I felt that they hadn’t done such a great job of realizing and living these beliefs, and that I could do much better than they did). <\/p>\n
That all came to an end over a decade ago. Since then I’ve remained in the same city, career-wise, but have shifted my career efforts to a major law-enforcement agency having jurisdiction over the communities that I had previously hoped to help “save”. Recently I asked myself, how much have I changed over the course of these two career terms? Why don’t I feel the same drive and excitement towards the notion of “saving the poor” anymore? Can the poor in question actually “be saved”?<\/p>\n
As with many young people of a religious and politically liberal background, I once believed that the undesirable social and economic conditions generally experienced by black and Hispanic people within depressed urban neighborhoods (e.g. high rates of violent crime and homicide, frequent single-female parent childrearing, high rates of unemployment, sub-standard housing, schools that don’t do a good job of teaching, high degrees of substance abuse, shorter average life-spans, etc.) were almost entirely imposed upon them by the sins of the white leaders of society who enjoyed high levels of economic, political and social empowerment, going back to even before the founding of our nation. What I was seeing in the city streets was all a matter of slavery and racism; the communities of color in the inner-city were obviously still suffering from the residual effects of this, along with continued neglect on the part of the majority. The people living on ground-zero were almost all good and capable people who could be freed from their chains of oppression, if only we the empowered would give them the right information, opportunities and infrastructure in sufficient quantities. <\/p>\n
That was basically the credo of the organization that I became involved with. When I started doing volunteer work there back in the later 1980s, the leader still spoke optimistically about “neighborhood transformation”. During an auto tour of the neighborhood that his agency served, he told me that “transformation” was getting closer and closer, it was almost in sight; it could actually happen if they could just grow some more and garner a few more million dollars of cash. I was still young enough then to find this all quite intoxicating. I was finally going to live the dream. Through some months of volunteer effort followed by over 10 years of professional employment (more-or-less “professional”) in this organization’s development office for facility, program and funding expansion, I was going to help my new hero make his (and my) vision of urban social justice finally be realized. And if we could do it, no doubt our approach would be quickly adopted in Philadelphia, Chicago, Birmingham, Los Angeles, where ever poverty and racism had condemned millions to lives that would be entirely unacceptable to the suburban majority of our nation. I would live to see a virtual end to the economic injustice that had become a rampant infection within America’s inner cities over the past 50 years. I would be a small part of a major advance in achieving something a bit more like God’s kingdom on earth, right near my own backyard. <\/p>\n
So what happened? What happened to me, what happened to those who believed (or appeared to have believed) in what I just described, and what happened to those who we would have rescued? Well, as to the inner cities, not much has really changed. In some places and in some ways, things have gotten better (new housing and homeownership opportunities — at least until 2008 — plus new schools, especially charter schools, and occasional new job opportunities); while just the opposite is also quite common (fewer well-paying jobs, more street gangs, more guns, formerly stable working-class neighborhoods going downhill). The families that manage to garner stable employment and balance their budgets (often with the help of inner-city development agencies such as the one I had joined) usually move to better neighborhoods. <\/p>\n
As to me, eventually I moved on, but I didn’t move far away. I am now in a better position to see just how self-destructive people within these communities — not all, but way too many — can be. Obviously I stopped believing that the inner cities could be “rescued”; both in terms of their problems being much more complicated than simple repression by a conspiracy of greedy outsiders, and in terms of debunking my own “social justice superhero” mentality. I started taking the notion of “culture of poverty<\/a>” a bit more seriously, while still well aware of the dangers of pushing that notion too far. Many conservative pundits would advise against any further efforts and funding to “rebuild the inner city”, saying that such programs (especially those started in the 1960s under President Johnson’s “Great Society” ) have backfired<\/a> and have only increased poverty levels. I would disagree with that; but then again, there is a valid argument that society might waste its resources by continuing or starting more “urban development” projects that go well beyond the basic services, the things that are part of our inherent social compact; i.e. schooling, police and fire protection, and emergency medical services. Just providing those services in the troubled urban neighborhoods is quite costly, if they are done right (and I definitely agree that they MUST be done right if the cities are to remain viable). <\/p>\n And my journey was more-or-less tracked by the organization that I become involved with. Again, when I started there, the “dream” still seemed to be alive. But after a few years, as our programs quickly grew and new people were hired and more and more money was handled, it became apparent that we were suffering a lot of internal crime, mostly on the part of those people of color who hailed from the neighborhoods that we were trying to help. We gave them jobs and opportunity for advancement, so you would think that they would have bought in to the mission. <\/p>\n As such, we “saviors of the poor” became quite confused by their betrayal. Sure, there are a few bad apples in every barrel, but it became apparent that financial crime was a never-ending dilemma on the part of too many of our employees. Add to that those who carelessly or intentionally damaged the housing and program centers that we built so as to make life in the neighborhood better; who wouldn’t take advantage of the educational, career and personal finance programs that we offered; or who joined but soon dropped out for lack of patience or discipline. Add to that the increasing crime, drug abuse and violence taking place on or near our facilities. Throw in the venality of the local political leaders and government employees who were supposed to serve and represent this community. It could all get you down some days.<\/p>\n At the same time, the local and national press found out about our amazing growth in the early 1990s (which I was helping to fuel through frequent grant funding applications). Within a few years, we had reporters visiting us for the grand tour with our founder almost every other week. His name seemed to be everywhere; his face could be seen on TV. The NY Times even called him the man who had built a “City of Hope”. I could see what was happening. We were soaking in all the glory and acclaim, so as to help forget our disappointment and our growing realization that “transformation” just wasn’t going to happen. No one could actually say and discuss this. We needed to keep on growing, to keep rolling money in for more buildings and programs, so as to gain even more acclaim in the public’s eye. There was no time for doubt and inconvenient truths.<\/p>\n Of course, it couldn’t last, and it didn’t. I wanted to find more secure and remunerative work, so as to start preparing for old age (the community agency did not have any sort of retirement or savings plan). And I was just tired of all the pretense. I was burned out. As to the agency itself, they are still in business, but they eventually lost all the press attention and had to abandon their visions of grandeur. They made at least a 1\/3 reduction in staff, buildings and programs over the following decade after I left. They still do many good and necessary things for a disadvantaged community; but actually, so does my current employer, the law enforcement agency. We both sometimes help certain disadvantaged people or families in certain situations. But neither would imagine that “neighborhood transformation” is possible because of our efforts. We cannot imagine any end to the unfortunate co-dependent realities that many continue to face in the urban area in question (and in similar urban areas throughout the nation). <\/p>\n