In the end, not much.

← Home 2) Give up the word “deserve.”→ … exactly what the poor need to do for themselves. On the one hand, I will shortly dispel the notion that wealth means you don’t have the same needs. On the other hand, unless you do these things for yourself, you’ll never understand what they need to do for themselves — the what, the how, the challenges, the work. Absent that, there’s no way you can possibly make yourself useful or helpful to them. For better or worse, one lives in a w

← 1) Do for yourself ... Home 3) Get your hands dirty.→ John C. Dorhauer’s “An Open Letter to White Men in America” begins: Dear White Men, You are persons of privilege. You didn’t earn it. This distresses me far less today than it did when I first read it. Maybe I’ve become more comfortable with having things I don’t deserve. More likely, I’ve lost all interest in whether people have things they don’t deserve or deserve things they don’t have. I encourage you to lose all i

← 2) Give up the word “deserve.” Home 4) Invest your own money. → There is no substitute for personal, hands-on, sustained contact with the poor. Do not use the state as a proxy. Do it yourself. Build relationships. Acquire poor friends. When I was in high school, a local church, community-oriented, in a distressed neighborhood, sponsored once-a-month work days for youth from affluent areas to come in and do service projects in the ‘hood. I only went twice. One day some o

← 3) Get your hands dirty. Home 5) Pray for the public schools. → Mitt Romney does. Again, don’t use the state as a proxy. On the one hand, the taxpayers have no need to bankroll your personal altruism. On another hand, the “underclass” are, by definition, folk The System cannot reach; no state action has any real effect on their lives. Three sectors come to mind: employment; homeless shelters; and low-income housing. In “Obstacles to my prosperity,” I said, “The great need

← 4) Invest your own money. Home 6) Emanate love. → Almost all poor children attend public schools. It is impossible for any thing to benefit them that does not also profit society as a whole. Thus prayer for them is a powerful shortcut to praying for the community and the nation. Effective schools mean reduction in crime for decades to come. Effective schools produce graduates who will be self-supporting and taxpayers. Adequate funding for schools depends on the property ta