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The Underclass
Anthony Daniels, who writes under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is a retired prison doctor and psychiatrist who tells of his experiences with his patients in "Life at the Bottom." It's an insightful book of essays about the self-destructive behavior and attitudes of the underclass.
In one essay, "We Don't Want No Education," reprinted by City Journal (http://www.city-journal.org/html/5_1_oh_to_be.html), Dalrymple says that he cannot recall meeting a 16-year-old from the public housing project near his hospital who could perform simple multiplication operations, such as nine times seven. One 17-year-old told him, "We didn't get that far." This was after 12 years of attending school. One of Dalrymple's patients took a drug overdose because of constant bullying from classmates. "She was stupid because she was clever." What her peers meant by that was anyone who worked hard and performed well at school was wasting his time when truancy and wandering downtown were deemed preferable. The underlying threat was: If you don't mend your ways and join us, we'll beat you up.
These weren't simply idle threats. Dalrymple says he's often met people in their 20s or 30s in his practice who gave up at school under such duress. Those who attend a school that has very high academic standards risk a beating if they venture into neighborhoods where the underclass live. He recalls treating two boys in the emergency room after they'd been beaten and two others who had taken overdoses for fear of being beaten at the hands of their neighbors.
Dalrymple says that most of the young people whom he's met in his practice cannot name a single writer and cannot recite a line of poetry. None of his young patients can give the dates of World War I, much less the second world war. Some patients never have heard of those wars, though one of his young patients who had heard of World War II thought it took place in the 18th century. In this atmosphere of total ignorance, Dalrymple says he was impressed that the young man had heard of the 18th century.
The education establishment aids and abets this state of gross ignorance. Dalrymple tells of one case in which the headmaster allows teachers to make only five corrections per piece of work, irrespective of the actual number of errors present. This is done so as not to damage student self-esteem. There are many other examples, but Dalrymple concludes that "it is extremely difficult to overturn these educational (or anti-educational) developments" because "teachers and the teachers of the teachers in the training colleges are deeply imbued with the kinds of educational ideas that have brought us to this pass."
The reader may have been misled, with my help, into thinking that "We Don't Want No Education" is about the black underclass, but it's about the white underclass in Britain. We can't use white racism and the legacy of slavery so frequently used to explain the black underclass to explain Britain's underclass. The welfare state and the harebrained ideas of the public education establishment are a far better explanation for the counterproductive and self-destructive attitudes and lifestyles of both underclasses.
A "legacy of slavery" surely cannot explain problems among blacks, unless we assume it skips whole generations. In my book "Race and Economics" (Hoover Press, 2011), I cite studies showing that in New York City in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. In 1880 in Philadelphia, three-quarters of black families were composed of two parents and children. Nationally, in the late 1800s, percentages of two-parent families were 75.2 percent for blacks, 82.2 percent for Irish-Americans, 84.5 percent for German-Americans and 73.1 percent for native whites. Today just over 30 percent of black children enjoy two-parent families. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a black teenage girl's raising a child without a man present was rare.
Dalrymple's evidence from Britain shows that the welfare state is an equal opportunity destroyer.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM 
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Comments
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15 Comments | Post Comment
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I don't think welfare or schools are the prob. I work with young kids and they're all energetic and curious except those who are malnourished or have neurological problems or have had the curiosity beaten out of them through verbal and/or physical assault. If the family, whether it's one parent, two parents, grandparents, or whoever their guardian is doesn't encourage learning and give the child the tools such as books and library visits and quiet time, they have no idea about the transportive power of books to take them to places they imagine and beyond, and the transformative power of books to educate them even while they're enjoying the story. Nope. It's not welfare and it's not poverty. It's lack of encouragement and lack of attention from those in their environment and it happens long before they set foot in any educational system. By the way, With a name like Dalrymple, I knew it had to be a Brit.
Comment: #1
Posted by: morgan
Mon Jul 2, 2012 12:51 PM
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Morgan:
You have perhaps willfully misread Professor William's post. Of course the family must support the educational system. But we have crippled the family with devastatingly bad social policies and distorting welfare incentives.
That takes away one element of support.
Even worse, the educational system has lost its guiding principles, and now panders to the worst "feel-good" elements of the nanny-state.
Finally, unions have removed all feedback mechanisms, so that the educational system now exists solely for its own bureaucratic imperatives, and no other useful public purpose.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Robert Arvanitis
Wed Jul 4, 2012 7:52 AM
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Morgan:
You have perhaps willfully misread Professor William's post. Of course the family must support the educational system. But we have crippled the family with devastatingly bad social policies and distorting welfare incentives.
That takes away one element of support.
Even worse, the educational system has lost its guiding principles, and now panders to the worst "feel-good" elements of the nanny-state.
Finally, unions have removed all feedback mechanisms, so that the educational system now exists solely for its own bureaucratic imperatives, and no other useful public purpose.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Robert Arvanitis
Wed Jul 4, 2012 7:52 AM
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Sir;...If intelligent children are driven out of school by less intelligent people; they have the ability if they have the desire, to learn, and knowledge is everywhere...On the other hand, people do not have to be too smart to realize that education is wasted on the poor when the poor can see intelligent people, and hard working people live in frustration, pain and misery...
They have to be there, in school, and they have to endure that torture, but they do not need some one who has bought into a system that fails them making them look stupid, though stupid they may be....Some times the difference between success and failure is buying into the system; and people coming here with little more than their culture and the clothes on their backs can become succcessful...Then you must consider what a great impediment in life is the living memory of slavery... A free person who conceives of themselves as free can endure laboring like a slave for the prospect of something better beyond...One man's stepping stone is another man's mill stone... What could be an avenue of escape becomes instead a path of pitfalls...
From what I know of reality, history has often denied the suffering and hopelessness of the poor... For example: Slavery was murder from one end of it to the other... Do the history books tell black people the meaning of Old Suzanna... We have that term: Sold down the River... What does it mean??? Slaves sold into the deep South died on average in about ten years time, of heat stroke, snake bite, or malaria... Old Suzanna was not being told not to cry, but to cry for a man who would never return... The heat of the sun, the malarial chills never make it into a history book, but those people know... And though it does not take much labor for a person to support themselves, even that opportunity is denied to them because you cannot profit on such people without them feeling they are working for nothing, living unsatisfying lives to see lives lived that they can only envy...
Money is cheap... Ignorance is expensive...So why not pay children to learn since the object is for them to support themselves with their learning??? Save on teachers, and pay the better students to teach the worse students, but pay everyone... It will be cheaper than prisons, and police, and the hospitals, and courts...If the object is to teach children that there is money in education, start by paying teachers more, and based upon results...As Caesar said when doubling the wages of his troops: It takes a lot to capture the imagination of a Roman... Why should anyone consider that we are in any sense different from those people in that age???
Is the Black man not entitled to his pride and his piece of the American Dream...Until people find the value of creation in the recreation it affords, you have to make the wages good, and the work easy...But consider, that just as every effort to educate people today meets with resistence, so would the paying of people to learn... The object to great numbers of uneducated people is their value to educated people as easy prey...If they do not have enough money for Sunday dinner and you can sell them on Kentucky Fried yard bird on Friday, the triumph in life is yours..
On a bus ride out of the South in the late 70's, a child told me that it was good luck to own a nicker graveyard, and the reason he told me this was because there was such a grave yard on his father's farm...Why would that be lucky??? The whole South is a nicker grave yard, and now our cities have become the same... What luck can there be in the wasting and death of so many promising lives for nothing... No society knows what it denies itself in the failing of any individual; but we have had enough black Genius to get some sense of the loss, -if we care to consider it... But across the board, intelligent people of every color find clawing themselves out of poverty and ignorance to be a humiliating and frustrating experience... So long as education is a privilage preserved for the rich and denied for the poor, this nation will never know its true potential...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Jul 4, 2012 8:15 AM
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'The Private Sector is doing fine!' Of course, I'm quoting! Washington has
lot touch with reality! Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's
time to eliminate Senators and Congress people, padlock the doors, send them
all home, and put in place a Governor from each state, who isn't an
attorney, to make sure we get back to being 'For the People'. The Governor
should know what's going on and put an end to the rhetoric; if not, then
'YOU'RE FIRED' are going to be the words Taxpayers use, which should have
been made into law many years ago! But then, look who's passing the laws and
who they are benefiting. Not the Taxpayers!
Politicians continue to talk about 'creating jobs', yet they haven't the
slighest idea of how creating jobs works. If they did, NAFTA, CAFTA, and
FOREIGN trade would have been voted down! The only jobs they've created are
for themselves, their buddies, and their very deep pockets, thus making
government so big, it's bankrupted America! When they sold Americans' jobs
out to foreign countries, stating "America will become a service country",
well, you guessed it, the only things being serviced are their huge
salaries, benefits, retirements, unemployment, social and welfare programs,
thus 'Discriminating Against the Taxpayers', which they've done far too many
times. Everyone can't be an attorney, a doctor, or a business person, and
this means we need the textile and furniture manufacturing jobs that America
had before being sold out for politicians' interests. BTW, Sitting on a John
Deere, in your home, wouldn't work and neither will the IOU'S placed in the
vault by politicians.
Harry Reid's comments about cutting the 14 trillion dollar debt with a mere
couple billion is one more of their ignorant jokes along with, and I'm
quoting, 'this budget is the hardest job I've ever done!' Guess what, folks,
these people don't know what a hard job is! It's time for these career
politicians to be sent back to where they came from with no salary, no
retirements from Taxpayers. Remember, most of them became politicians
because they couldn't make it in the private sector!
As far as Obamacare, this is another mess created to make Taxpayers think
they're really doing a job. These career politicians couldn't care less
about Taxpayers future or their insurance, if they did, they wouldn't be
"taking" from Taxpayers and "giving" to people who've never worked and never
intend to work and this is obvious in the Medicare programs, the millions of
dollars spent on booklets (that mean nothing)and you can tell this from the
rhetoric. Not only is this 'Discriminating Against Taxpayers', but it should
be illegal to force anyone to buy anything, as is being done as we speak!
Remember, this isn't their money! It belongs to Taxpayers!
I'm quoting "we'll stimulate the economy with more bailouts and handouts'
and once this what politicians call a recession (Taxpayers call a
depression) ends, we'll reduce the deficit!' A little late, wouldn't you
say? Economists and Taxpayers, know the politicians/government workers will
never get control of anything, never have, never will. Take GMAC and the
huge bailouts by politicians to 'as they put it - to save jobs'? Without
textile and furniture manufacturing jobs, no one could buy the cars, anyway,
and this is why GMAC shouldn't have been bailed out with Taxpayers money!
According to latest news, GMAC is recalling another 470,000, plus, cars for
possibility of catching fire. Politicians say 'they're doing so good!'
Really? Chevy Volt (powered out), Cadillac (now Chinalac) and debt isn't
being paid as they still owe Taxpayers trillions on these bailouts. I
suppose this is what politicians call 'creating jobs, huh?'
Time Warner, with Pat McCrory and Walter Dalton, debate was quite
interesting. NC Bar Association put this one on. Taxpayers know the past and
what a lot of attorneys, Democrats and Republicans, have gotten by with,
that it's time to cut ties with politicians, who are attorneys, Easley,
Perdue and of course, Dalton, as they're cut from the same mold and this
mold has got to stop growing.
While I'm on a roll, it's time to eliminate Senators and Congress people,
padlock the doors, send them all home with no salary or retirement, since
they've didn't have a job when they landed this career position that has
destroyed America! It's time to put in place a Governor from each state, who
isn't an attorney, so we can turn America back to being 'For the People'!
It's really quite simple, folks!
Comment: #5
Posted by: Shirley deLong
Wed Jul 4, 2012 8:16 AM
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Re: Robert Arvanitis;... Sir,..The great destroyer of communitys in this world that is now working its evil magic on the family is Western Law, which conceives of all people, even children as individual; and this is particularly unfair for the blacks... In the past, and you can see this fact in our words ethnic, and ethic, each person represented his community for better or worse...So a person's ethic was his character, which was the character of his kind, and each individual added to the community honor or disgrace...
Now; back then, youth was not free outside of their group, but constrained, and free within as now they are constrained within... It was because all accepted the notion of group rights and responsibility... People were raised with the knowledge that they might do wrong, and enrage their neighbors, but that some defensless child or adult would receive the punishment, or revenge... Every person's community was the defense of their rights, and was also their policeman...
Now, each person stands alone, and no ones community has control; but the flip side has not changed... The black community is held responsible for their failures and criminals -though they have no real control; and this is the greatest injustice...Yes; a lot of our social policy is based upon the notion of a free individual acting freely, and in fact, the whole economy is predicated on the notion... But it is retarded, to be kind...You can easily reduce the authority of parents and teacher to mere influence; but you cannot replace that authority with law and police except at great expense that no one wants to bear...
Law has not worked because it takes away every community's defense of rights which is taking their rights, and promising them legal defense and justice; but the justice has not resulted, so the more law you have, the more law you need, and when it destroys enough of the natural relationships between people, it has the whole society on the edge of destruction...
Thanks....Sweeney
Comment: #6
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Jul 4, 2012 8:32 AM
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Re: James A, Sweeney
Wow. What a stream-of-consciousness ramble, bordering on the incoherent. So many vapid generalizations that fail to account for the evidence. Yes, slavery was bad. But, as Williams points out, many of the problems among American Blacks today were NOT problems in the past, and the same problems appear among non-Blacks in England. Therefore, slavery, whatever its evils, doesn't explain the problems. There is no correlation between teacher pay and student performance, so raising teachers' salaries is not the solution either. I have taught public school through college for 30 years and can vouch for Williams' estimation of our education system.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Lee McMullin
Wed Jul 4, 2012 9:32 AM
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The welfare system and the educational system are both to blame for the state of ignorance of the underclass. My books CHANGES IN WELFARE LAWS and EDUCATION REFORM address in detail the changes which have to be made to minimize the underclass or at least severely reduce it in numbers. Both books are available on Kindle or Nook Book. The books address what should be done to solve the problems and does not just present the problems without solutions.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Uldis Sprogis
Wed Jul 4, 2012 12:40 PM
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Re: Shirley deLong;... Just one thing... Work is one of those things people learn by doing because it pays, or out of necessity; but you still need a teacher, or at minimum, an example... Consider that you are growing up where there are no jobs, and not even grass to mow... Consider that if you could find work it would not pay your bills, so that work supposed to be worthwhile and honorable is worthless and demeaning in reality...Consider that your greatest labor in life might be carrying the burden of your depression, or avoiding the sting of your anxiety...Consider that every single employer is thinking night and day of how to reduce his work force, do more with less help and find new markets even at the cost of the government giving to the unemployed, that you will pay for, or be reduced to the same state as eventually, given the present course of events...
Ma'am, you must know that ones own support if it is possible without humiliation is a good thing... There can be a great deal of recreation in creation... It is the demoralization of people, their loss of community which is morality, their loss of meaning which is often found in ones employment, the good we get for the good we do is a sense denied to the poor...
There is very little of choice in most people not working when they don't work... People suffer through their want of choice which lays great moment on the choices we can make that are best made with advice and information; and this question of work is moot, because in the end, none of us can work, and in the begining none can work, and if we will live we must live on kindness... Except that; kindness is much abused and wearing thin...How much of that is founded on the tendency to blame the victims rather than the guilty party- is a question only you can answer...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #9
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Jul 5, 2012 1:00 PM
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Re: Lee McMullin...Slavery is bad; in a sort of off hand, relative way... And so is torture bad, in a nonchalant fashion, uncivilized too, and perhaps ineffective, and certainly impolite... You folks really hand me a hoot... What you would not allow for yourselves for a moment as unthinkable you would allow for others as bad...We can deal with bad; so why can't they???
We may have put the issue of slavery on the shelf, thinking never to dust it off and revisit it; but some people were never allowed but a moment of limited freedom before the yoke was once more saddled on them and they were told their condition of servitude and unequal rights was no better than their ability to defend them...
I do not suggest that slavery was bad, because My experience of slavery is limited to love and wage slavery, and I am like a well kept dog...I do not ever expect to tell people what it is like to be them, what it is like to be a woman, or a black man, or a Native American... I have trouble telling my own story... It is enough to say that people often tried at great risk to escape slavery, that it killed many just in the process of transport alone, and that they were bred like animals, but raped too as is clear enough so that many masters must have been driving their own children into a deadly bondage, and all the while knowing it... The criminals who loved slavery because it was so immoral turned their guns on this people rather than part with their immoral ways, and it is a shame so many survived to wreck the peace with terror, and once again have social control...
You may think slavery was bad, and if pressed you might consider it very bad; but if the thought of slavery as a fact of family heritage as enough to keep people from working hard even when that is the key to upward mobility, then slavery was much worse than bad...
When I was young I was quite prejudiced... I thought all young black guys were Jimmy Hendrix, and all young black women were Angela Davis... I loved the cool downtightness of them, their easy ways of walking, their clothes that never seemed to fit but were filled with attitude, their relaxed and practical view of human sexuality... But I was well informed by a black man, that I would not last ten minutes as a black man... So what if you hate them, and consider them ignorant and uneducated because some shet paper person tells you they are...
They ain't all stupid, but their world; that is not one of their making, takes too much out of them... If they want to have some money in their pockets and live a lot longer they will become white, act white, and think white....It is as hard for them to escape their paradigm as it is for you...And who can say that it is ever possible... I can see you meeting an intelligent black person and saying: I am so delighted to find you are not ignorant... The thought that you could judge the many from a few reveals you as prejudiced...
Look at you calling slavery bad... How noble of you...Too bad the last middle passage was too late for you to enjoy...You could have been one of those slavers recruiting blacks for fields... Slavery is not so bad; you could say...There will always be some place to stay; the slums the tenaments and ghettos will be provided if you pay, the prison waits for any not in the mood to play; there is something here for everyone if you don't ask too much, like a first class education or the front seat in the bus...What is the name of that guy who wrote the song for Toy Story... He wrote a good one about life in America...Sail Away... Linda Rondstadt covered it...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #10
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Jul 6, 2012 2:26 PM
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Re: James A, Sweeney
"If the object is to teach children that there is money in education, start by paying teachers more, and based upon results"
The only way to do that is to first eliminate the teachers unions, which absolutely refuse to even consider any sort of merit-based pay.
Of course, if we did away with the teachers unions, maybe we could even do something really crazy like fire the incompetent teachers.
Yes, I know...I'm dreaming...
Comment: #11
Posted by: Jeff Gunn
Sat Jul 7, 2012 3:46 AM
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Re: James A. Sweeney. Your comment number 10 to Lee McMullin, Wow! That was pretty awesome. Well said.
Comment: #12
Posted by: morgan
Sat Jul 7, 2012 11:24 AM
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Re: Jeff Gunn;... If you take the most educated people in any given community, those who know well enough to teach, and deprive them of their right to a fair wage or even to bargain with some sense of equality and respect; you are teaching children an education is pointless and demeaning because you are proving wrong before the eyes of children what you say is true: That education is the key to income and honor...
The best and most cost effective means of getting children to seek education as a thing in itself is to trick them into it by paying teachers great sums, and rewarding students according to their acheivement...An educated mind is an obtuse abstraction to an uneducated one... Children who are fatalistic, and even less rational than your average grown up children have to be enticed along with tangible rewards... They need to see their teachers honored and well paid... They need to get a taste of the money one can make in time a mattress of, or the money will all be lies and illusions to them, without the power to motivate...
We have to spend money on our children to make up for the fact that we are forever working to earn money to spend on our children; so they have money, pretty much, for not being pests... You need to sparkle their imaginations with little flakes of gold like snow from the mother load if you want kids to excel... Once they have the education they will find they need less cash, so it all balances...Primarily, though; if you do not show children through their teachers that education is the path to wealth and honor; you can forget having people work for it....
Look at us today... We have so many people out of neurosis who only care about knowing enough to have money, because they have been so deprived of it; and for such people money equals honor... But where money is dear, honor is cheap, and one can buy a lot of it for very little, but it will never be worth more than the one who buys it... Why not honor self sacrifice for the good of a community??? Consider the time one person spends to educate themselves to the point where they can educate others only to find that if the student becomes educated, it is considered by their work alone against the will of the teacher, or over their incompetence; but when the child fails it is always the fault of the teacher who earned too much and gave too little...
Sympathize for a moment, for if you knew it is unlikely you would be able to teach because few are... And think of the problems society is suffering from that find their way into school as well as prison... We have mental health issue, and learning disabilities all combined in some student; and others who do not care, and others still who dare not care... Only one method will ever bring students around...
Dr. Johnson talked of whipping students, saying that what was gained on one end was lost on the other, once the whipping ceased... We can no longer brutalize children into education, and do thank God...Now we have to bait the hook if we want them to bite...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #13
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Jul 7, 2012 11:49 AM
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Nice try Sweeney but people aren't buying that liberal nonsense propaganda anymore. First of all, those who can't do teach and there is no better example of that then the clueless, incompetent, elitist, arrogant fool Obama. Take away the right to bargain fairly? What is so fair about having public sector unions bribe the very same Democrat politicians who are supposed to be sitting on the other side of the negotiating table representing the hard working taxpayers? Not only isn't it fair but such outright corruption should be illegal. Are you even aware of all the debt problems of states,, cities, municipalities, towns, etc. from the unsustainable salaries and benefits secured through this corrupt racket? Fair wages??? Teachers get paid very healthy salaries, never have to worry about losing their jobs no matter how bad some of them are, get easy hours, unbelievable vacation time, free medical care, outrageous pensions (which most contribute none or very little towards), and early retirement. It is unbelievable that people stii try and use those lame arguments when this scam has been widely exposed. To top it off, these ungrateful teachers poison the minds of our youth with their failed, outdated ideas and they are openly hostile to the very same people who actually go out into the real world and produce the wealth needed to give these ingrates their easy lifestyle.
Comment: #14
Posted by: Thetruth
Sat Jul 7, 2012 7:36 PM
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Nice try Sweeney but people aren't buying that liberal nonsense propaganda anymore. First of all, those who can't do teach and there is no better example of that then the clueless, incompetent, elitist, arrogant fool Obama. Take away the right to bargain fairly? What is so fair about having public sector unions bribe the very same Democrat politicians who are supposed to be sitting on the other side of the negotiating table representing the hard working taxpayers? Not only isn't it fair but such outright corruption should be illegal. Are you even aware of all the debt problems of states,, cities, municipalities, towns, etc. from the unsustainable salaries and benefits secured through this corrupt racket? Fair wages??? Teachers get paid very healthy salaries, never have to worry about losing their jobs no matter how bad some of them are, get easy hours, unbelievable vacation time, free medical care, outrageous pensions (which most contribute none or very little towards), and early retirement. It is unbelievable that people stii try and use those lame arguments when this scam has been widely exposed. To top it off, these ungrateful teachers poison the minds of our youth with their failed, outdated ideas and they are openly hostile to the very same people who actually go out into the real world and produce the wealth needed to give these ingrates their easy lifestyle.
Comment: #15
Posted by: Thetruth
Sat Jul 7, 2012 7:37 PM
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