For most of us, if we are more conservative in our mindset, we typically focus on personal responsibility. If our philosophical leanings are more liberal, we often see the system as being the problem. In my attempt to look for the truth, I have to challenge myself to not look for facts to support my default position, but any facts in conflict with that stance as well.
Let’s start by looking at poverty through the lens of personal responsibility. Someone will introduce the Success Sequence stating, “if you follow these guidelines, in the order laid out below, you can almost be assured you will not end up end poverty.”
- Finish school
- Get a job
- Get married
- Have children
What could be more simple than that–having a proven recipe to keep you out of poverty.
If it is so simple, why is it that we don’t view a mass exodus from poverty. As we discussed last week, the end of 350 years of slavery and laws targeting people of color do not make everything better in a day or even in a generation.
Just because it is illegal to discriminate against someone for housing, that has not caused a wholesale purging of such content in housing covenants. In fact, recently, the University of Washington documented over 500 deeds and covenants affecting over 20,000 dwellings in the city of Seattle that include racial restrictions. Many exclude all but the “white race” while others used code language in advertisements calling the neighborhoods–“Restricted Districts”.
To make this more real, the following is a quote from one of those documents. “That the said lots or buildings thereon shall never be rented, leased or sold, transferred or conveyed to, nor shall the same be occupied by any negro or colored person or person of negro blood, or persons of the Mongolian race”
Imagine that you are looking to buy a house today and you notice such a statement. If you are a part of the excluded group, though you know it won’t be enforced, I think it can’t help but have a psychological impact on you.
The family structure has to be one of the biggest factors influencing how you grow up and how you view life. In our last blog we mentioned “the talk” many black parents have with their children-regarding how to act when stopped by the police. Although the parent is seeking to protect their child, what would be the most natural thought for the child to have?–fear and potentially hatred for white cops.
The concept of a “War on Drugs”, is a bandwagon most of us would be glad to climb onto. However, that program, started by president Nixon apparently had racist motives from the beginning–though some dispute it. Two of Nixon’s aides (Ehrlichman & Haldeman) have stated a purpose of the war on drugs was to use it to arrest Blacks and paint them in a bad light on the evening news-as typically, they were not Nixon supporters.
Regardless of the original intent, the war on drugs and mandatory sentencing have affected poor Black families more than any other group of which I am aware. Part of that is a result of the longer mandatory prison time for crack cocaine (the cheaper version) compared to powder cocaine. This was true from the 1980’s through 2010. When a father is removed from the home for five or ten years, you can bet that will have an impact on the next generation. Do we need a war on drugs? Certainly, something needs to be done as almost 80% of all minors in the juvenile justice system are under the influence of some mind-altering substance when committing a crime.
The Heritage Foundation did a study as to the barriers to high school completion and economic mobility and found that three groups were most likely to drop out of high school. 1) Males, 2) Minorities, 3) Poor. Fitting into one or more of those categories does not predetermine their outcome as the majority do graduate and there are great success stories. But it certainly can be a weight around the ankle of members of those groups.
If you grew up in a middle class neighborhood, the chances you knew many families who followed the Success Sequence is quite high. But if you grew up in a poor neighborhood, the chance you knew more than one family in your community who followed that sequence is very low. Now that can be used as a club to beat over the heads of those who remain in poverty but I would like to use it as a truth to encourage us to have compassion.
There are those who judge Blacks for playing the victim card. There are two truths we need to face regarding this. First, it is the character of a person and not their race that causes someone to overuse the victim card. Second, we do need to acknowledge there are victims in poverty-the children. Their climb out of poverty requires much more effort than that required by most of us to remain in our comfortable middleclass communities.
Think of it like this for those born into poverty. They are born into a deep pit where there is a ladder to get out of that pit–maybe like the Success Sequence. But every 4th person getting on the ladder receives a strong jolt of electricity knocking them off. Sure we can tell them to be persistant and they will get out, but think of how much more valuable it would be if we would do something about the jolt of electricity.
In the same study cited above, though they state many changes have the power to increase graduation rates and upward mobility, they identify non-cognitive skills as being the most important. If someone hasn’t learned self-control, how can you expect them to be successful in life. If a child doesn’t understand the value of honor and respect, that child is like a carpenter without a saw. Learning skills like willpower and motivation provide an individual with grit–which Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania defines as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously towards challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity and plateaus in progress.” You need to have the right tools to succeed.
Some excellent programs have been successful in helping children learn these values. One example of such a program is the Teach One to Lead One program founded by Dr. Lori Salierno. They meet in public schools for one hour each week, engaging with the students to model and teach such principles as Responsibility, Integrity, Self-Control, Compassion, etc. Fortunately, they see success stories of graduates of the program who credit their success in life to the principles learned via that program.
Though I am not currently participating in that program, I have had the opportunity to work with them one year and it was encouraging to see how much the students looked forward to that day each week.
Feel free to share if you know of other programs providing such character-building curriculums.