Saving the Babies, Looking Upstream for Solutions (3 page pdf), by Steven E. Mayer, PhD, Effective Communities, LLC. If you have never read this parable, you should. Social change philanthropy and conservative philanthropy divide, often, on the issue of entrenched social injustice. One side says that that the deck is stacked against the poor, women, or minorities. The other side, says, in effect, "If you losers would quit your bitchin and be like us you would not be poor." The parable works because it is about babies. What if we changed that to adult blacks? ("Why should I pull 'em out; let 'em learn how to swim. Pull 'em out and we give them an incentive to flounder. Maybe it their genes. Darwin says we should let them drown. We can't subsidize a culture of failed swimmers. Whoever saved me from drowning?") See also, William Schambra and Albert Ruesga here and here.
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