Robert Weissberg writes: Americans seem to have an irrepressible urge to uplift the bottom—the lumpenproletariat, to use a fancy word– no matter how daunting the mission. The federal government has spent billions since the mid-1960s (e.g., AmeriCorps) with scant success. Numerous non-profits have also sought solutions and here, too, the results are not encouraging. Now the private sector is trying its hand. With Starbucks taking the lead ($30 million from the CEO’s own foundation), corporate America (Hilton, Microsoft, Walmart, J.C. Penney, among 13 others) is rolling out a plan to create 100,000 jobs, internships and apprenticeships by 2018 targeting the 5.5 million young Americans who are neither in school or in the workforce. These youngsters (called “disconnected youth”) are predominantly non-white, poor, and are often teenage single parents. That these youngster lack any extended work experience hinders getting even to the first rung of the economic ladder.
The Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Network will monitor and oversee the enterprise. All and all, this is a mega buck project supported by a Who’s Who of corporate America with access to an army of policy wonks.
Will it succeed? Absolutely not, despite its corporate capitalist pedigree. Begin by recognizing the awaiting legal pitfalls. Any effort to target black kids without a similar outreach program for whites, Hispanics, and Asians may instigate litigation and EEOC complaints. This may tie up the project for years as Aspen lawyers seek to circumvent anti-discrimination laws in employment. And if that were insufficient to impede progress, what about hiring those with criminal records? Does Walmart really want to hire ex-cons and thereby face the potential liability if one of these employs assaults a customer? Even more vexing, what about those with drug addictions? Imagine making a reasonable workplace accommodation for a chronic sex offender? Clearly, many of the most challenging cases, those most in need of a corporate-supplied opportunity, will be risky bets and would justifiably never be hired in the first place.
Far more important, a few exceptions aside, these youngster will arrive with terrible work habits and I defy any firm, within today’s legal and political environment, to overcome these liabilities. I suspect that all the well-intentioned CEO’s and their white, middle class Aspen facilitators are clueless regarding the toxic underclass culture. It will be a major struggle to get these kids to be prompt, follow directions dutifully, avoid on-the-job conflicts, speak clear English absent profanities, disdain socializing or periodic texting, function without close supervision, always dress neatly and be well-groomed (including conservative haircuts, no piercing), eschew petty thievery, control one’s temper when challenged (“dissed”) and otherwise conduct themselves according to traditional standards of a “good employee.”
Invariably, civil rights activists will condemn this training as cultural imperialism, making blacks into whites, and this argument is not easily dismissed. The Al Sharptons of the world will insist that there’s nothing inappropriate with black slang and a “black accent” in the workplace, and corporate America should accept it much like they currently tolerate immigrants who speak with a Chinese or Indian accent. Ditto for program enrollees who continue to wear their pants well below their waist or otherwise dress in the ghetto “style.”
Then add the obstacles of bringing these “disconnected youth” up to speed on simple arithmetic, an 8th grade reading level, legible penmanship and properly filling out forms. In a nutshell, corporate America, with the help of the Aspen Institute must transform deeply rooted cultural habits, habits that may even be classified as survival tools in Hobbesian inner cities. Clearly, far more is involved here than simply spending an hour or two teaching how to make a tall soy milk latte and then use the cash register to make change from a $20.
