This book explains why so many efforts by liberals to help the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries. The intentions behind welfare programs may be noble, but in practice they have slowed the self-development that was necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they also have a long history of pricing blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education was intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates, particularly in the fields of math and science, than would have existed in the absence racial preferences.
And so it goes with everything from occupational licensing requirements, which make it more difficult for blacks to start businesses, to soft-on-crime laws that make black neighborhoods more dangerous, to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low-income students attend. In theory these efforts are intended to help the poor, and poor minorities in particular. In practice they become barriers to moving forward.
Please Stop Helping Us lays bare these counterproductive results. People of good will want to see more black socio-economic advancement, but in too many instances the current methods and approaches aren’t working. Acknowledging that is an important first step.
