For everyone who is for affirmative action and the welfare state. For everyone that insists that "social injustices" are at fault for the plight of the black community. Please, take a walk through the ghetto. Explain to everyone how liberal and socially conscious you are , then explain that you understand the social injustices that are keeping them there in the ghetto. Then walk right back out of the ghetto to a standing ovation of praise and applause.

Then wake up from the dream that you are living in, and realize that in the ghetto you would be nothing but a victim. A weak-minded lame rife for exploitation. You would quickly become familiar with the finer points of the reality in which you live. The reality in whice no amount of social reform is going to change the ghetto lifestyle short of handing people government checks into eternity. The ghetto mentality has a vice-like grip upon the people who have spent multiple generations there. In America living in abject poverty is a choice, or the result of a series of poor choices. It is a set of ideals in which hard work and education don't seem to factor in.

This is an open challenge to all of the compassionate liberals out there... instead of sitting around whining to other white people about the problems of the ghetto. Please go deep into the ghetto, and see if you ever come out. Of course no lib would ever have the balls to descend into the abode of these "oppressed" peoples so this a bit of a rhetorical challenge. How do you help people who don't want to help themselves? Why is it societies' job to ignite the fires of ambition in a self-defeating culture? How do you force people who live in the land of opportunity to take advantage of these opportunities? What opportunities are these people actually deprived of ?My point here is this : Where do liberal ideologies meet the actualities of a cruel and unforgiving world?

Disclaimer : Please do not actually go into the ghetto. You will quickly be identified as weak and will promptly be taken advantage of. You probably won't ever come out again, and I don't want to be responsible for that.

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I am what you speak of here. A liberal (mostly) white 40 year old woman. And I have been to the ghetto. I have lived in the ghetto. I have lived on welfare. I had heroin addict parents. I dropped out of high school. And let me tell you, you are wrong. I now live in suburban New Jersey, with a husband and two children from the same father, who is my present husband and has been with me since I was 19. We are not on any form of assistance, and never have been. We both work and have gotten through the tough times because of our own hard work.

Of course there needs to be a desire for change, and opportunity for change, but it is nowhere near as simple as you make it out to be. Let me ask you, have you been to the ghetto? Are you a white liberal, or a white conservative? Have you walked in the shoes of some of the multi generational ghetto residents?

You said it yourself - you are white; therefore, it is a bit easier for you to rise from the ghetto existence. Blacks have much tougher time of it for a variety of reasons (many historical).

What puzzles me though is that you managed to rise from a dirt poor life to a fairly decent one, but live is a sewer state like New Jersey. New Jersey represents toxic waste and rude people - everybody knows that.

PN you are such an ass. But a hilarious ass.

I grew up in the ghetto. Not the New York or Chicago ghetto, but the Atlanta ghetto. Luckily, i was first generation ghetto as my mom grew up rural, so we got the hell out of there as soon as possible. It took 13 years, but we made it. And I promise I would do anything in my power to make sure I never returned.

I do know people that live there though. And they aren't getting out. Crime records and kids and such. It's a sad state to be in to not know or want any better.

It's like gang wars fighting for turf they will never own. What a bunch of dumb f*cks.

Anyone who thinks that living in the ghetto is primarily by choice is seriously deluding themselves and represents a naive idealism that cannot be tolerated because of it's danger. But likewise, any 'liberal' who thinks poverty can be eliminated within capitalism is also seriously deluded and idealistic; but it never hurts to extend help.

There not only doesn't exist equality of outcomes in the United States, but there isn't equality of opportunity. It's perfectly easy for a upper-middle class white gentile to talk about equality of opportunity when they're driving around in their hummers and their Benzes, or it's easy for an upper-middle intellectual class liberal to talk about achieving equality of outcomes within capitalism. Mostly because such an existence shelters them from the reality of the almost caste-like system in place where poverty is a necessity for operation.

I think it's relative. You don't have to get rich to get out of the ghetto. But there are life choices that keep you there. My sister, a single black woman, owns a new furnished home and a new car and travels quite frequently. She has done so with help from her family. So you "can" apply yourself and get out of that situation.

But you have to NOT frack up your life early by getting kicked out of school and shoplifting and all the other crap that kids do.

The way out of the ghetto is hard, but staying there is harder. Some people just don't know that.

It's hard to argue with that one Kat. That's why I've posted in the past about how smiling politicians who make big promises really don't have a clue (or give a shit) on what to do with the poor.

One solution that works well is the model from the U.A.E. Most of their citizens live very comfortable live. They import people from other nations to do all the menial shit jobs.

okay so how does that help? now you are just creating a new underclass. one that doesnt even speak the language or share the culture.

How many of you actually have known a multi-generational ghetto dweller?

Here's an example...
I knew this one chick whose mother, sisters, and grandmother all lived in the same project. They were happy there. They weren't "poor" by most standards and saw nothing wrong with it. It was just what they were used to.

Like Kat said, an underclass is necessary. If you want your own citizens to be of a higher class, than you must import the underclass from other nations.