“Race, Urban Inequality and the Los Angeles Rebellion” by Melvin L. Oliver, James H. Johnson, Jr., and David M. Grant, in Calhoun and Ritzer, Social Problems (1993)

…..A year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most important legislation regarding race relations since the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States was confronted with a disturbing realization: Racial conflict was not limited to the south and was not about to go away. In August 1965 in the impoverished and predominantly black ghetto of Watts in South-Central Los Angeles, nearly six days of burning, looting, and gun- fire left thirty-four people dead and more than a thousand injured. The Watts riot was the first in a series of urban revolts in virtually every major metropolitan area in the United States between 1965 and 1968.' Two related theories-relative deprivation and frustration-aggression-orient scholarly explanations of the ghetto rebellions of the late 1960s.

Relative deprivation theory states that the civil unrest was due largely to the widespread lack of social and economic opportunities available to blacks in areas such as education, employment, and housing. This theory focuses on the relative level of material conditions experienced by different groups within a society rather than on the absolute level of poverty in, for example, a poor country in the third world. According to this theory, the likelihood of violence increases as the perceived differences between groups increase and the ability to reduce such differences diminishes.' Borrowed from a Freudian framework developed by John Dollard, the frustration—aggression theory begins with the belief that frustration leads to aggression. The behavior of a disadvantaged group is expected to become increasingly violent as attempts to change the status quo through conventional means are blocked. These two approaches are often combined as the deprivation-frustration-aggression model, which includes two additional concepts: rising expectations and precipitating events.'

The poor social and economic conditions and the mounting frustration or urban blacks came into conflict with the rising expectations of blacks after the civil rights movement. According to this view, the discontent of black urban America swelled because the successes of the civil rights movement failed to improve the day-to-day living conditions of ghetto residents. Finally, precipitating events, most often involving ghetto residents and white police officers, provided the spark that ignited discontent, frustration, and despair into violence.

These theories of civil unrest underscore several similarities and differences between the 1965-1968 revolts and the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992. Certainly the acquittal of the police officers accused of beating Rodney King can be viewed as a precipitating incident. The conditions of poverty experienced by residents of South-Central Los Angeles in 1992 are similar to conditions in 1965. However, in contrast to the civil disorders of the 1960s, this was a multiethnic rebellion. This diversity is reflected in Table 2, which lists arrests by race and ethnicity for the period April 30 through May 4. It has been estimated that 1,200 of the 10,000 people arrested were illegal aliens, roughly 40 percent of whom were handed over to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials for immediate deportation (Table 3). In contrast to the civil disorders of the 1960s, the burning and looting were neither random nor limited to a single neighborhood; rather, these activities were targeted, systematic, and widespread, encompassing much of the city. This has led us to purposefully and consistently refer to the civil unrest as a rebellion as opposed to a Riot. Finally, rather than violence arising out of the expectations of the civil rights movement and economic expansion, Los Angeles erupted after twelve years of federal neglect and economic decline. These economic, political, and demographic changes can best be understood in an urban political economy perspective.

This approach to civil disorders does not dismiss the importance of social and economic inequality or the frustration felt by disadvantaged ethnic and racial groups. However, it focuses primarily on the economic and political relationships among the people and groups which structure the urban social system. Economic restructuring, political neglect, and demographic change have worsened racial and class divisions in Los Angeles. Therefore, we must try to understand the rebellion of 1992 in the context of changes which have occurred both nationally and in the traditionally black area of South-Central Los Angeles over the past two decades.

Both the verdict in the police brutality trial and the widespread burning, looting, and violence which occurred after the jury issued its decision shocked most Americans. In retrospect, however, both the verdict and the subsequent rebellion were quite predictable.

The outcome of the trial was predictable for two reasons. The first involves the defense attorneys' successful bid for a change of venue (location) for the trial. Simi Valley, the site of the trial, is a predominantly white community known for its strong stance on law and order, as evidenced by the fact that a large number of LAPD officers live there.' Thus, the four white police officers were truly judged by a jury of their peers.' Viewed in this context, the verdict should have been anticipated.

The second development that made the outcome of the trial predictable was the defense attorneys' ability to put Rodney King instead of the four white police officers on trial. (The media were also guilty in this regard, as shown by their consistent characterization of the case as the 'Rodney King trial.") The defense attorneys in effect played the so-called race card. They painted King as unpredictable, dangerous, and uncontrollable, much as George Bush in the 1988 presidential campaign used Willie Horton, a convicted rapist released on a temporary work furlough only to commit another heinous crime, to paint Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime.'

The Willie Horton stereotype is often applied to all black males regardless of their social and economic status, especially if they live in the inner city.' Many people believe that thejury agreed with the defense attorneys' portrayal of King as dangerous and uncontrollable and thus rendered a verdict in favor of the police officers despite the seemingly irrefutable videotaped evidence.

In hindsight, the civil unrest can be viewed as being not just about the verdict in the police brutality trial; rather, it reflected the frustration and alienation that had built up among the citizens of South-Central Los Angeles over the past twenty years. The rebellion was a response not to a single act but rather to repeated acts of what is widely perceived in the community to be blatant abuse of power by the police and the criminal justice system.'

The civil unrest was also a response to a number of broader external forces which have increasingly isolated the South-Central Los Angeles community geographically and economically from the mainstream of Los Angeles society.' These forces include recent structural changes in the local and national economy; wholesale disinvestment (the systematic withdrawal of financial resources) in South-Central Los Angeles by banks and other institutions, including the city government; and nearly two decades of conservative federal policies which have adversely affected the quality of life of

the residents of South-Central Los Angeles and accelerated the decline and deterioration of their neighborhoods.

These developments occurred at a time when the community was experiencing an unprecedented change in population accompanied by tension and conflict between long-term residents and more recent arrivals." Viewed from this perspective, the verdict in the police brutality trial was merely the straw that 'broke the proverbial camel's back.""

SEEDS OF THE REBELLION

Relations with the Police

The videotaped beating of Rodney King was only the most recent case in which LAPD officers have been accused of using excessive force to subdue or arrest a black citizen. For several years the LAPD has spent millions of taxpayers' dollars compensating local citizens who were victims of police abuse, illegal search and seizure, and property damage. Moreover, the black citizens of Los Angeles have been disproportionately victimized by the LAPD's use of the choke hold, a tactic employed to subdue individuals who are considered uncooperative. During the 1980s eighteen citizens of Los Angeles died as a result of LAPD officers' use of the choke hold; six- teen of them were black.12

Accordingly, the verdict in the police brutality trial was only the most recent in a series of cases in which decisions in the criminal justice system were perceived in the black community to be grossly unjust. This verdict came closely on the heels of a controversial verdict in the Latasha Harlins case. A videotape revealed that Harlins, an honor student at a local high school, was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Korean shopkeeper after an argument over a carton of orange juice. The shopkeeper was sentenced to six months of community service and placed on five years' probation.

Economic Factors and Demographic Change

These and related events have occurred in the midst of drastic demographic change in South-Central Los Angeles. Over the last two decades the community has been transformed from a predominantly black to a mixed black and Latino area (Figure 1). Today nearly half the population of South-Central Los Angeles is Latino. In addition, there has been an ethnic succession in the local business environment, characterized by the departure of many Jewish shopkeepers and an influx of small family-run Korean businesses. This ethnic succession in both the residential environment and the business community has not been particularly smooth. The three ethnic groups-blacks, Latinos, and Koreans-have found themselves in conflict and competition over jobs, housing, and scarce public resources.

Part of this conflict stems from the fact that the Los Angeles economy has been drastically restructured over the last two decades." This restructuring includes both the decline of traditional unionized, high-wage manfacturing employment and the growth of employment in high technology manufacturing, the craft specialities, and the advanced services sectors of the economy. As Figure 2 shows, South-Central Los Angeles-the traditional industrial core of the city-bore the brunt of the decline in manufacturing employment, losing 70,000 high-wage stable jobs between 1978 and 1982.

At the same time that these high-paying stable jobs were disappearing from South-Central Los Angeles, local employers were seeking alternative sites for their manufacturing activities. As a consequence of these seem- ingly routine decisions, new employment growth nodes, or 'technopoles," emerged in the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and El a Segundo near the airport in Los Angeles County as well as in nearby Orange County (Figure 3)." In addition, a number of Los Angeles-based employers established production facilities in the Mexican border towns of Tijuana, Ensenada, and Tecate. Between 1978 and 1982 over 200 Los Angeles-based firms, including Hughes Aircraft, Northrop, and Rockwell, as well as a host of smaller firms moved to new sites outside the Los Angeles area." Plant relocations and closings have essentially denied the residents of South-

Central Los Angeles access to the high-paying unionized jobs that had provided financial stability to many of the community's residents for more than thirty years."

While new industrial spaces were being established elsewhere in 'Los Angeles County (and in nearby Orange County as well as along the Mexican border), new employment opportunities were emerging within or near the traditional industrial core in South-Central Los Angeles (Figure 3). However, unlike the manufacturing jobs that have disappeared from this area, the new jobs are in low-paying competitive sector industries such as furniture, garment, and jewelry production. These firms produce relatively small quantities of highly specialized goods, rely primarily on undocumented Mexican and Central American workers, and pay at best the minimum wage.

Partly as a consequence of these developments and partly as a function of employers' openly negative attitudes toward black workers, the jobless rate among black males in some areas of South-Central Los Angeles hovers around 50 percent. Whereas joblessness is the central problem for black males, concentration in low-paying jobs in competitive sector industries is the main problem for Latino residents of the area. Both groups share a common fate: incomes below the poverty level (Figure 4). Whereas one group consists of the working poor (Latinos), the other consists of the job- less poor (African-Americans)."

In addition to the adverse impact of structural changes in the local economy, South-Central Los Angeles has suffered as a result of the failure of local institutions to devise and implement a plan to redevelop the community. Over the last two decades the city government has consciously pursued a policy of downtown and west side redevelopment at the expense of South-Central Los Angeles. The prime example is the development of the Wilshire corridor, a twenty-mile stretch extending along Wilshire Boulevard from downtown to the Pacific Ocean. Consisting of a continuous sky-line of high-rise office buildings, luxury condominiums, and exclusive shopping centers, this development was built with the help of tax rebates and direct and indirect subsidies diverted from neighborhoods in other parts of the city."

Government Policy

Finally, the seeds of the rebellion are rooted in nearly two decades of conservative policy making at the federal level. Many policy analysts talk about the adverse impact on minorities and their communities of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty programs of the 1960s, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the Republicans have been in control of the White House for all but four of the past twenty years." A number of public policies implemented during this period, especially during the years when Ronald Reagan was President, served as sparks for the recent civil unrest. Three of these policies will be noted here.

The first is the federal government's establishment of a laissezfaire business climate to improve the competitiveness of U.S. firms. This policy appears to have facilitated the large number of plant closings in South- Central Los Angeles and capital flight to the United States-Mexico border and to third world countries. Between 1982 and 1989 there were 131 plant closings in Los Angeles, idling 124,000 workers. Fifteen of those plants moved to Mexico or overseas."

The second policy is the federal government's dismantling of the social safety net in minority communities. Perhaps most devastating for South- Central Los Angeles has been the severely reduced funding of community- based oganizations (CBOs). Historically, CBOs were part of a system of social resources in the urban environment which encouraged poor people in the inner city, especially disadvantaged youth, to pursue mainstream avenues of social and economic mobility and discouraged antisocial behav- ior. In academic terms, CBOs were effective 'mediating" institutions in the inner city."

During the last decade or so, however, CBOs have become less effective as mediating institutions because the federal support they used to receive has been substantially reduced. In 1980, when Reagan took office, CBOs received 48 percent of their funding from the federal government." As part of the Reagan administration's dismantling of the social safety net, many CBOs were forced to substantially reduce programs that benefited the most disadvantaged people in the community. Inner-city youth have suffered the most from this defunding of community-based initiatives and other safety net programs.

Moreover, the social safety net has been replaced with a criminal dragnet. That is, rather than support social programs that discourage disadvantaged youth from engaging in destructive behavior, over the past decade the federal government has tried to resolve the problems of the inner city through the criminal justice system.

This policy has criminalized the effects of poverty; thus, it is not surprising that nationally, 25 percent of working-age young black males are in prison, in jail, on probation, or otherwise connected to the criminal justice system." Although reliable statistics are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that at least 25 percent of the young black males in, South-Central Los Angeles have had a brush with the law. What are the prospects of landing a job if one has a criminal record? Incarceration breeds despair and in the employment arena, it is the scarlet letter of unemployability."

Educational initiatives in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were designed to address the so-called crisis in American education constitute the third policy domain. A large body of social science evidence shows that policies such as tracking (separating classmates into ability groups), holding students back a grade, and the increasing reliance on standardized tests as the arbiters of educational success have disenfranchised large numbers of black and brown youths. In urban school systems they are disproportionately placed in special education classes designed for mentally disabled students and slow learners and are more likely than white students to be subjected to extreme disciplinary sanctions such as suspension and expulsion."

The effects of these policies in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) can be seen in the data on school-leaving behavior. For the LAUSD as a whole, 39.2 percent of all students in the class of 1988 dropped out at some point during their high schools years. However, for high schools in South-Central Los Angeles, the dropout rates were between 63 and 79 percent (Figure 5). This problem is not limited to the high school population. According to data compiled by the LAUSD, approximately 25 percent of junior high school students in South-Central Los Angeles dropped out during the 1987-1988 academic year (Figure 6).

Twenty years ago it was possible to drop out of school before graduation and find a high-paying job in heavy manufacturing in South-Central Los Angeles. Today, however, those types of jobs are not longer available in that community. The adverse effects of a restructured economy and the discriminatory aspects of education have created a substantial pool of inner- city males of color who are neither at work nor in school. These individuals are in effect idle, and research shows that it is this population which is most likely to be in gangs, engage in drug trafficking, and participate in other criminal activities." Moreover, it is these idle minority males who experience the most difficulty in forming and maintaining stable families; this accounts, at least in part, for the high percentage of female-headed families with incomes below the poverty level in South-Central Los Angeles.

THE SOURCES OF A MULTIETHNIC REBELLION

A unique aspect of the Los Angeles rebellion was its multiethnic character. While blacks were the source of the disturbances on the first night of the rebellion, by the second evening it was clear that their discontent was shared by many among the city's largest racial group, the Latino community. As was discussed earlier, the economically depressed Latinos in Los Angeles consist of a working poor population characterized by a large core of Mexican and Central American immigrants. However, the rebellion did not encompass the traditional Mexican-American community of East Los Angeles. Indeed, the fires and protests were absent in this community as political leaders and local residents cautioned residents against 'burning your own community." Nevertheless, Latinos in South-Central Los Ange- les did not hesitate to participate in looting, particulary against Korean merchants. How can this pattern be explained?"

To understand one important element in the uneven participation of Latinos in the rebellion) one must place the Latino experience into the context of struggles to politically incorporate that community into the electoral system of Los Angeles. Although this city has the largest Latino population outside of Mexico City, Latinos have always been underrepresented in the municipal and county governments. Since the 1960s Latinos, particularly Mexican-Americans, have been involved in protests against this situation ranging from street-level grassroots activity to court challenges to racially biased redistricting schemes that have diluted Latino voting strength.' That struggle has recently begun to bear fruit. In the important court case Ga7za et al. v. County of Los Angela, Los Angeles County was found guilty of racial bias in the redistricting process and was ordered to accept an alternative redistricting plan that led to the election of Gloria Molina as the first Latina to serve on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors." Recent maneuvering at the municipal level will ensure significant representation of Latinos on the city council, but not without considerable conflict between entrenched black and Latino city council leaders over communities that are racially mixed.' Los Angeles is influx politically.

While it is clear that an emerging Latino majority will assume greater political power over time, the political process has lef t several sectors of the Latino population behind. In particular, Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, who have a longer history and are more likely to constitute a greater proportion of the voting-age population, have been the key recipients of the political spoils of this struggle for electoral power. All the elected officials who have come into power as a consequence of these struggles are Mexican, and while they articulate a 'Latino' perspective, they also tend to represent a narrow 'Mexican' nationalism." The growing Central American population, which is based in South-Central Los Angeles, not in the traditional East Los Angeles barrio, has not benefited from the political empowerment of Mexicans. These are recent immigrants who are not able to vote, and thus have become pawns in negotiations with the county and city over the composition of political districts. Black and white politicians now represent districts that are up to 50 percent Latino. Because these people are unable to vote, a declining black or white population of 25 to 35 percent can maintain control over these districts without addressing the needs of the majority of the community. The result has been the political neglect of a growing community whose poverty has been overlooked.

This contrast could be easily observed during the rebellion as traditional Mexican-American community leaders were either silent or negative toward the mass participation of Latinos. Latinos in South-Central Los Angeles had little stake in the existing political and economic social order, while East Los Angeles was riding the crest of a successful struggle to incorporate its political demands into the electoral system. just as the black community is divided into a middle class connected to the system by political

This social reality must be coupled with the fact that the major priorities for businesses in regard to choosing a location are access to markets, access to a high-quality labor force (code words for no blacks), infrastructure, and crime rates. These factors are considered much more important than tax rates. Where enterprise zones have been successful, employees have brought the work force with them rather than employing community residents or have used these enterprise locations as warehouse points to store items rather than produce them, and therefore require few workers.'

Kemp has had a long-term commitment to empowering the poor by making them homeowners on the theory that individuals have a strong motivation to maintain that which they own and to join in efforts to enhance their neighborhoods. Project HOPE would make home ownership afford- able (Table 4). This idea had languished in the Bush administration for four years until the Los Angeles rebellion pushed it to center stage. However, this program would lock poor people into communities that are socially and economically isolated from mainstream employment and educational opportunities. Also, it would do nothing to expand the housing stock. Project HOPE is analogous to the reservation status provided to Native Americans in the government's effort to empower them. As a result of their isolation over time, Native Americans have some of the highest rates of unemployment, alcoholism, and domestic abuse of any American ethnic and racial group.

The federal blueprint (Table 4) also includes funding to give poor inner-city residents of South-Central Los Angeles a greater choice in the schools their children will attend. The encouragement of educational choice between public and private schools, using public dollars, must be carefully monitored. Although this has been promoted as the solution to the crisis in public education, poor parents are at risk of being the losers in a system where choice is 'unchecked." Without careful monitoring, much- needed tax dollars for public education could end up subsidizing private school tuition for middleclass students. The Wisconsin Parental Choice, Plan has achieved a modicum of success because this public-private initiative was carefully designed to meet the educational needs of poor children.

The Wisconsin legislature mandated that private providers of education had to develop recruitment strategies and curricular offerings to accommodate poor students. Since nonpoor youngsters already had a wide range of educational choice, it was appropriate that poor children, who are the least well served by the educational system, have their interests ad- dressed. Educational choice must be driven by the needs of the poor if it is to revitalize education in the innercities.' Finally, the Bush administration proposed and Congress appropriated funds for a "Weed and Seed" program designed to rid the community of the violent criminal element and provide support for programs such as Head Start and the job Corps, which are known to benefit the urban disadvantaged and their communities (Table 4). As it is currently envisioned, however, the program places too much emphasis on the 'weed" component and not enough on the "seed' component. Of the $500 million proposed for the program, only $109 million is targeted for seed programs such as Head Start. With nearly 80 percent of the proposed funding targeted for the weed component, the primary goal of the program is clearly to continue the warehousing of large numbers of poor inner-city youths in the penal system.

This is a misplaced focus, as it is clear that harsher prison terms are not deterrents to crime in inner-city areas such as South-Central Los Angeles. What is needed instead of more seed money and to the extent that in- creased police power is deployed in South-Central Los Angeles, this should be done through a community policing approach where officers are on the street interfacing with community residents before the commission of a crime.

Many people are dubious about the so-called conservative war on poverty and its likely impact in South-Central Los Angeles. The federal blue- print, and apparently the local Rebuild LA initiative headed by Peter Ueberroth, is built on the premise that if the proper incentives are offered, the private sector will play the leading role in the revitalization and redevelopment of South-Central Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the types of governmental incentives under consideration in Washington are not high on private businesses' locational priority list.

Since the social science evidence is clear on the ineffectiveness of enterprise zone legislation both in Great Britain and in thirty-six states in this country,' what is needed instead to rebuild South-Central Los Angeles

is a comprehensive public works employment program modeled on President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s. Roosevelt began the WPA during the great depression to provide jobs and skills to the unemployed by hiring them to build public works projects such as highways, roads, bridges, train stations, and public works jobs to rebuild the infrastructure of South-Central Los Angeles can provide meaningful employment for the jobless in the community, including the hardcore disadvantaged, and can be linked to skilled trades' apprenticeship training programs.

Incorporating the hard-core disadvantaged in such a program, how- ever, would require a restructuring of the Private Industry Council's job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The program must dispense with a performance-based approach in which funding is tied to job placement. This approach does not work for the hard-core disadvantaged because these training agencies have consistently engaged in creaming-recruiting the most 'job-ready" segment of the intercity population-to ensure their continued success and funding. Meanwhile, the hard-core unemployed have received scant attention and little educational upgrading.

A WPA-type initiative combined with a restructured JTPA program would go a long way toward resolving the chronic jobless problem, especially among young males of color, and rebuilding the infrastructure of South-Central Los Angeles. Such a program would have several goals that would enhance the social and economic viability of South-Central Los Angeles. First, it would create meaningful jobs that could provide the jobless with skills transferable to the private sector. Second, it would rebuild a neglected infrastructure, making South-Central Los Angeles an attractive place for business and commerce. Finally, by reconnecting this isolated part of the city to the major arteries of transportation, building a physical infrastructure, that could support the social and cultural life of this multi- cultural area (museums, public buildings, housing), and enhancing the ability of community and educational institutions to educate and socialize the young, this plan would provide a sustainable "public space' in the com- munity. Only when South-Central Los Angeles is perceived as a public space that is economically vibrant and socially attractive will the promise of this multicultural community be fulfilled. Thus far, private sector actions and federal government programs and proposals have done nothing to achieve this goal.

CONCLUSION

The fires have been extinguished in South-Central Los Angeles and other cities, but the anger and rage continue to escalate and are likely to reemerge if the underlying political and economic causes are left to fester. While political, business, and civic leaders have rushed to advance old and new strategies for coping with this latest urban explosion, much of what is being proposed is simply disjointed and inappropriate.

Clearly there is a need for additional money to resolve the underlying causes of urban despair and devastation, but money is not enough. Government is constitutionally required to ensure 'domestic tranquillity,' but government alone cannot empower poor communities. Although blacks and other people of color have an obligation to rebuild their neighborhoods because they constitute the majority of both the victims and the vandals, they cannot assume this burden by themselves.

What is needed is a reconceptualization of problem solving where we meld together the strategies offered by liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and whites and people of color. Three cities (Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Detroit) have served as urban laboratories where we have engaged in action research and proffered solutions to urban problems which have generated violent outbursts.

The contentious state of police-minority community relations has been a primary cause of urban unrest in each instance. While relations have improved in several large cities in recent years, the LAPD has been frozen in time. Black and Hispanic males have been brutalized in their encounters with the police, the majority of whom are white males. Even more disconcerting is the fact that poor central-city minority communities have become more crime-ridden of late. Thus, minorities find themselves in the ambiguous situation of needing both greater police services and protection from the excesses of those services. This contradictory situation has kept relations between these groups at a boiling point.

More police officers are desperately needed in high-crime communities disproportionately populated by the poor. Local, state, and federal dollars must be allocated toward this end (federal funds for this initiative are included in the crime bill before Congress.) At present, violent felons are beginning to outnumber police officers in many urban centers.' As was noted previously, this increase in police power should be deployed via a community policing program. Such an effort can control minor offenses and build trust between police officers and community residents. Community policing has had positive results in Detroit and Philadelphia and is showing encouraging signs in Milwaukee and many other large and small cities. In addition, the intensive recruitment of minority officers and specific, ongoing diversity training will further reduce police-minority community tensions. Most important in this effort is enlightened, decisive leadership from the office of the police chief, a position of abysmal failure in Los Angeles.

The Bush administration's response to the rebellion was to blame it on deficiencies among the urban poor, particularly on the supposed lack of 'family values" and the predominance of female-headed households.46 This jaundiced view ignores the real sources of the conflict and concentrates on the experience of growing up in concentrated poverty communities where the social resources and assistance necessary to negotiate mainstream

society are either insufficient or totally lacking." Thus, the policy implication that needs to be drawn from the rebellion is that in order to bring the poor and disenfranchised into mainstream society, enhance their acceptance of personal responsibility, and promote personal values consistent with those of the wider society, we must provide a comprehensive program of meaningful assistance to this population. However, a change in personal values alone, as suggested by some right-wing analysts, cannot substitute for job training, job creation, and the removal of racial stereotypes and discrimination." The spatial concentration of contemporary poverty presents a significant challenge to policymakers and human service providers alike. Although many programs and initiatives have been instituted to combat these problems, they suffer from three important weaknesses.

First, there is a lack of &ordination among programs aimed at improving the life chances of citizens in poor communities. Second, no systematic steps have been taken to evaluate existing efforts to ensure that the pro- grams are effectively targeting the 'hardest to serve," adults with low skills and a limited work history and young people who are teen parents or school dropouts. Third, there is no comprehensive strategy for planning future resource allocations as needs change and these communities expand.

A recent national study of training and employment programs under the job Training and Partnership Act revealed that little has been done to address the remedial educational needs of high school dropouts and that those with the greatest need for training and employment services are not targeted. However, overcoming these and other program weaknesses is not sufficient to solve these complex problems. A strategic plan is needed to alleviate the social ills associated with concentrated poverty.

There is a need to conduct a comprehensive inventory of agencies and institutions that provide services to people living in poverty areas. We also need to assess and evaluate the service providers' performance in an at- tempt to identify strengths, weaknesses, and missing links in their service delivery systems. On the basis of these findings, a strategy should be devised for a more effective and coordinated use of existing resources and for the generation of new resources to address unmet needs. Finally, we need a plan of action that will encourage development in the 1990s, linking together the various initiatives.

Most important, representatives of the affected ethnic and racial groups must be placed in key decision-making roles if these efforts are to achieve success.' Citizens of color, individually and through their commu- nity, civic, and religious institutions, bear a responsibility to promote positive lifestyles in their communities and to socialize their young people into the mainstream. However, they cannot do this alone.

They cannot be held accountable for the massive plant closings, disinvestment, and exportation of jobs from American urban centers to third world countries. There must be equality in responsibility and authority across race and class lines if we are to resolve the urban crisis. Government, in a bipartisan fashion, must direct its resources to programs that have been determined to be successful with the poor, the poor must be permitted to participate in the design of programs for their benefit, and society at all levels must embrace personal responsibility and a commitment to racial equity. …..