The other day I was at work, having a good political debate with one of my coworkers that shall remain nameless, when the topic of poverty came up. The guy that I was talking with told me that there are lots of jobs out there and that people, especially those in the inner city (Detroit), should just go get jobs. He backed up his argument by saying that he is confident that if he lost his job that he would be reemployed within 2 weeks.
I agreed with him in the sense that of course he could go out and get a job pretty easily. He is a white, well educated, male with a car, an internet connection and a place to live in the suburbs where there are cars. All of these conditions are lacking for a siginificant portion of the inner city population. Now I dont claim to have lived in the inner city, or have come up through rough conditions or family life, but I know that it is a lot harder to just go get a job when you are lacking many resources.
I don't know that i can even come up with a solution, as it stands right now, it is a vicsious circle that lends itself to being very hard to break. First you are an undereducated black male without a car in an area of town where there is practically no employment to begin with. In my area, Detroit, there is no mass transit to get you to where the jobs are. You cannot expect someone to go through a 2 hour bus ride to go 30 miles just to have a minimum wage job. So the first problem is just getting to where there are jobs, even low paying ones. The second problem is that if you get there you are discriminated agasint becsue of your speech and your race, so your chances of getting the job are even lower. Plus, you lack the basic education needed to get even the lowest end job.
I am also not saying that it is impossible to break this cycle. With enough luck and determination I am sure that people accomplish much with those set of hinderances all the time. My contention is this. To say that people should just go out and get a job, is shortsighted, cruel, and basically impossible to justify, just going off your own life experiances.
Ideas, opinions and responses please......