Crime and Poverty Go Hand-in-Hand

Almost every news program I turn to, on the television or the radio these days, has a story about Fersuson, MO and Michael Brown's death. There is Cleveland, OH and the death of Tamir Rice, in almost any town in our country there is a news story about a minority, young-adult or, as in the case of Tamir Rice, a youngster, who has broken the law, run from the law, gone up against the law. Unfortunately, as in the two cases mentioned, there is, also, the travesty when they've paid the ultimate price. Many of these network and cable stations have looked at a corollary between poverty and bad behavior. I maintain that we hear about the bad behavior of the poor because largely, they or their families, can't afford an expensive attorney to manipulate the court system, keep their client out of jail and out of the public eye. I think we may be unaware of just how often wealthy white boys get into trouble because the parents of wealthy little white boys throw money at their 'problems' so they rarely, if ever, end up making the 'nightly news'. For the impoverished, criminality is a norm. A loss of hope is a state of mind. Embarrassment is a feeling they don't have because they wouldn't be able to survive if they did. So the 'normal' morays of society are not something they hand down from generation to generation, it's just easier that way.

In case you don't know it, being poor is a crime in this country. Poor people are nothing more than leeches sucking the blood out of the bank accounts of the working people. I can't even imagine the difficulty in raising a child in poverty these days. It is a life of shame. No matter how hard you work, you cannot get out of poverty because you are, for the most part uneducated, so your children are subjected to the shame of being dirty. They wear duct taped shoes. Their clothes are not only worn repeatedly every 2-3 days but they are dirty as well because you can't afford the laundromat much less have a way to get there. Most impoverished rent which means coin machines and they use public transportation which makes getting a family's dirty clothes to the laundromat very difficult. If they solve the latter, the machines need to be stuffed full due to a lack of funds, so the laundry doesn't get all that clean anyway. Dirt gets pretty well ground in when you wear the clothes 5-10 x's per wash. Then these clothes are handed down from kid to kid. There is no pride in personal hygiene, there's no money for it. (Food stamps will not buy a bar of soap, toothpaste or deodorant.) If they are lucky, every child in your kids class gets a new coat from the wealthy white man so they can stay warm. (We actually have a wonderful man here in town who goes to certain schools and gives ALL the kids new coats every year so that those who are in desperate need are not embarrassed by their poverty. I love him for that!) Otherwise, you are numb to any semblance of dignity- dignity is something for the wealthy. So handed down through the generations is numbness to getting handout clothes that are many times dirty, torn, missing buttons, broken zippers, too small or too big. Oh, and you should damn well consider yourself lucky for them. Numbness is handed down so that on Monday, when the teacher hands out the 'special red tickets' for the Free Lunch Program, your kids are immune to the sighs and sniggers of the other kids in class. In some cases, the children have to be numb to being called to the office on Fridays, at the end of the day, to pick up their backpack of 'Weekend Food'. In many cases, that backpack feeds the family. I guess that literally is taking food out of the mouths of babes, but the Food Stamps have all been spent by the middle of the month. A parent in poverty must be numb just to use Food Stamps. It's tough standing in line knowing that everyone around you is going to know your are a lazy, good-for-nothing, cigarette smoking, dope dealing drunk when you have to pay for your Faygo and store-brand chips that the kids will have for dinner. Cheap, healthy and fresh is not that easy to come by and you have to try to keep them from getting hungry. (Please don't ever think the poor in this country do not know what everyone says about them. Politicians get on tv and radio, political pundits, talk show hosts, you and I, everyone says it!!! They are numb, not in a coma!!!) As for education, 'integration' is dead when it comes to economics. Rich people go to schools in wealthy neighborhoods and the impoverished go to schools in the ghetto. It's not about black or white anymore. It's about the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. States can do things like make different grade levels take proficiency tests and the poor kids will fail. They are numb to failure as well, it's the only way to survive it. They start failing here in the fourth grade so, even if they've somehow managed to get into high school, there's very little hope they will pass the high school proficiency exam and actually get a high school diploma much less, go to college. So why bother to stay in school-talk about a waste of time. Parents in the cycle of poverty don't care about school. It's all about survival. Algebra, chemistry, grammar and literature are not going to help you survive in the ghetto so there's just no need to even try. Failure is not AN option, it's the ONLY option. No need to allow your kids to have a dream. There is no dreaming in poverty. Dreaming is a waste of time. Then there is the saga of the unwed mother in poverty. Kids have sex. Wealthy kids have sex. Poor kids have sex. Wealthy young ladies are far more likely to have birth control and abortion available to them. If daddy's insurance doesn't cover either/or, no problem, mom will just open her wallet. Have you seen the cost of condoms lately?? Sadly as this seems, many young women in poverty want babies. They want something of their own. They want someone to love them. They want a family. They love their mothers even though mom doesn't seem to care about them but, they will be different. They will be a mom like the mom they wished they had. Sadly, it's the only dream that isn't dead in poverty. That is, until the baby is born and they face the truth-they are their mothers and their grandmothers and their great grandmothers before them. It's the one family tradition handed from generation to generation- poverty.

In closing, if we can cure poverty, we may have a chance at seeing a little accountability

#poverty #poor #crime #ferguson