I am convinced that direct and large-scale intervention aimed at breaking the cycle of deprivation and the limited development of human potential among the black poor is the only serious method of addressing the racial inequality problem in the long run. And while such intervention definitely constitutes a departure from a color-blind stance, it is not what people usually mean when they call for "affirmative action."

Ironically, our obsession with employment and admissions preferences makes it more difficult to focus on this goal of targeted intervention to help genuinely disadvantaged blacks, and more difficult to marshal the political consensus needed to pursue it.

Glenn Loury in One by One from the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America (Free Press, 332 pp.; $25).

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./BOOKS & CULTURE Review

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