4 decades later, poverty persists

A 2002 report by Levine showed that the city's overall black male employment rate plummeted by 21 percentage points from 1970 to 2000, according to Census data.

This despite all the failed liberal social programs.
One person in the article understands what failed liberal social programs have done to minorities:

"There's jobs, but a lot of people don't want work," Johnson said. "I hear them sit and talk. They'd rather sell dope."

And I'm sure its "the man's" fault that this happens:

Because cocaine, alcohol and marijuana remain the drugs of choice in neighborhoods like Smith's, recovering addicts face constant temptations.
There are no available statistics on drug arrests in the 12-block neighborhood, but drugs have taken a tremendous toll on the city over the past 40 years.
In 2005, drug arrests citywide were 13 times the number of arrests for drug violations in 1967, according to Milwaukee Police Department records.

Then you read this stat...and someone like Chet sees racism as the problem, and THAT thought process IS the problem:

As of mid-July, 746 offenders were serving time in the state's adult prisons for Milwaukee County drug convictions, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Alec Loftus. Of that number, 531 inmates, or 71%, were black

To some liberals, those numbers show how bad off these people have it. It has NOTHING to do with personal responsibility, nothing to do with people making their own decisions. I'm sure that most of them have no choice when it comes to smoking crack.