What can the"Ghetto" give?

"To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word."

Thank you all so very much for your honest and insightful dialogue to my last post. These are deeply spiritual and important questions. Thank You.

Ok, So my beautiful wife drew my attention to a question. You see, although the question "What does the 'Ghetto' need is an important one" (One that I and my neighbor are struggling with). The question is from a "needs-based" approach. For so long communities such as North Lawndale have been a problem to be fixed. The Black community has often felt the tension of others analyzing the causes of their situation. W.E.B. Dubois expressed the feeling like this:

"BETWEEN me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word." (The Souls of Black Folk. 1903)

We need to change the question; change it to an asset-based question -
What Can the "Ghetto" give? What can it give to the majority culture from which it is ostracized?
I have a few thoughts that I will blog soon, But do any of you have any thoughts? Any thoughts on "need-based" vs. "asset-based" thinking. Any thoughts on what it feels like to be a problem.

What does the Ghetto need?

"Let me ask you something," the gruff older man asked assertively, "What does the ghetto need?"

I have recently been trying to get to know one of my neighbors. He is a large man of about 60 years old, who runs a neighborhood snow-cone stand. This was the introduction to our first real conversation.

"That's a big question," I stammered.
"No its not, its simple, what does the ghetto need?"

I tried to collect myself, here I am a new neighbor, living intentionally in a neighborhood that is marginalized from the rest of the city. I of course have thoughts, it's been the subject of many hours of thoughts, readings, and conversation for Ashley and I. However, when asked that directly, I wasn't sure what to say.

What would you say?

"Leadership," I said, "leaders from the neighborhood who come back to influence the youth". Actually, I don't think it sounded that good when I said it, and I'm pretty sure my voice cracked like it did when I first started puberty.

"Education," he said, "the ghetto needs re-education...the problem is that anyone that has ever tried to tell that to the people has gotten killed, all the way back to ghandi."

We talked for a little while longer. Actually he talked and I listened. I left the conversation with a snow cone, and many thoughts. Too many to share here.

But here's the question, "what does the 'ghetto' need? Is it simple/complex? Let me know what you think.