ArcaMax

Yet Murray has since redeemed himself in my view with his more recent book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010." By focusing only on the socioeconomic changes that white Americans have experienced since the 1950s, it actually provides support for a long-running liberal argument, that the "tailspin of culture" to which Ryan referred -- including out of wedlock births and "generations of men not even thinking about working" -- is crippling poor and blue-collar Americans of all races.

As one who has known Murray for years and debated him onstage, I believe it was "Coming Apart" -- as well as similar work by Harvard's Robert Putnam on class divisions and social isolation -- to which Ryan was referring, not "The Bell Curve."

I also am relieved to hear that Ryan, unlike the libertarian Murray and numerous other conservatives, appears to hold on to the quaint, old-fashioned belief that government, properly utilized, can provide real remedies and not just handwringing over dire social calamities.

I don't necessarily support all of this aspiring presidential hopeful's ideas, but let's give him his due. At least he has ideas.

He's been touring urban neighborhoods, echoing Jack Kemp's tradition, to formulate a new conservative agenda on poverty.

He has indicated that he wants to reform welfare programs in ways that will incentivize work. He also wants to enlist community groups and other institutions of civil society to fight social breakdown, he said, and deal with the "real culture problem" in these communities.

In short, he appears genuinely interested in competing for us voters of color with new ideas instead of writing us off. Before we condemn what he has to offer, let's hear what it is.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.

(c) 2014 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.