Part 5: Violence in America: Homegrown Terrorism

Part 5: Violence in America: Homegrown Terrorism

At this point it is necessary to shift gears. Every child suffers some chronic stress irrespective of ghetto or not. Every child has a different make-up, and some children can handle x amount of stress better for genetic reasons. Now it is important to realize that the same stress may not produce the same amount of stress in another child, or even the same child at different situations in their lives. Thus, it is not like we can measure the amount of chronic stress and state what the consequent impact will be on a child (or adult). There are psychological forces at work which can affect how we respond to chronic stress.  

We understand, at this point, that acute stress which threatens our immediate survival, initiates changes in most body systems which best enable us to physically get out of danger. However, these same stress responses generated by our own mental activity, frequently over a long period of time, are harmful to our physiology, and can create all sorts of long term medical conditions. We also understand, at this point, that long term stress damage is maximally damaging during our formative years. It becomes absurd to say, that children raised in our urban, suburban, or rural ghettoes, once they become an adult, have the same chance to succeed as anyone else, depending on genetics. 

So what psychological forces can alter our physiological response to various stressors, including chronic stress. Keep these forces in mind when considering children being raised in modern day ‘ghettoes’. 

1. Outlets for frustration. 

2. Social support

3. Predictability—When we know a task is going to be difficult in advance we can prepare for it, and mentally the body stress responses will be less.

4. Sense of Control—If you are at the top of the control ladder you have lower levels of stress hormones in your blood. If you are ‘middle management’ level in the control ladder, you have much higher levels of stress hormones in your blood. Of course, you have high demands being placed on you and your job is at stake to carry out orders and succeed with them. At the bottom of the control ladder are those who have little responsibility, low expectations, and no control. They are bored, frustrated and no light at the end of the tunnel, which can lead to depression. Sometimes we just can’t win. 

5. The perception of whether things are getting better or worse—Chronic stress will generate less concentration of stress hormones in the blood when we see light at the end of the tunnel. We feel the stress of studying hard, but we also realize we are getting closer to having a successful career so we have less response to the stress. We work on a demanding job but can feel that we are on track to be promoted to a better job position. We try hard at a sport and we can see ourselves getting better and better. 

Of course the above 5 psychological forces which impact on just how the body will respond to a particular stress are not straightforward. There are always a multitude of factors to keep track of here. For example, if we are simply hell bent and obsessed on getting more control and desperately needing a high degree of predictability for the stresses in our lives, we just make things worse. In this case our chronic body stress responses will be more vigorous, not less. 

If we take these 5 factors and apply them to the lives of children being raised in our ghettoes, it becomes rather clear what these children are up against. How many outlets do they often have for frustration?  They can’t just dart out of the house and run around with their friends to work off frustration—it is too dangerous a community for them to do that. They are trapped. They are less likely to have a family pet, or a zillion toys and gadgets to go off and play with. They probably do have an electronic device, and maybe they can vicariously watch people behave in violent ways when they are angry.   If we are affluent there is far less tendency to see violence in the media as a reasonable alternative in our lives. For those kids in ghetto environments, they see all around them, in adults, that violence is a viable alternative. 

Ghetto kids, in general, have less social support. They probably, as children are not out engaging in too many appropriate social endeavors. The opportunity is less and the danger too great. They often live essentially trapped at home, sometimes with bars on the windows and doors. Even family gatherings are much more likely to be reeking with drama. Violence of some sort may be only moments away.  

Ghetto kids can seldom predict much of anything. Their parents have stresses too, and parental behavior also more unpredictable. They may move from neighborhood to neighborhood a lot, and have varied people supervising them at varied times. Early on they see death and disease and economic instability and so on. Each day these kids often wake up not sure what the day will bring rather than eagerly awaiting the pleasant choices for them to choose. 

If ghetto kids don’t have little sense of control, no one does. 

Ghetto kids are much less likely to perceive anything as getting better. 

Consequent to the absence of psychological factors to lessen the effects of stress, these ghetto kids are often filled with fear, frustration and anger. That is a terrible combination for chronic stress. They will suffer more harm from chronic stress, on the average, compared to children in more affluent communities.

Again, another caveat. There are good ghetto parents who kind of understand what their child needs and find ways to, at least partially, blunt all the dangers via the 5 principles above. 

Much of the science here is new. Much of what we are doing to these ghetto kids is becoming more and more obvious, as large numbers of them are now becoming adults in huge numbers. We still tend to blame them for their attitudes/behaviors, to seek ways to punish them; the more severely the better. But there are some signs that more people are now beginning to understand how futile all this punishing them as adults really is. More people are beginning to realize we need change the nature of the environment in our poor communities. Unfortunately, this requires the expense of ensuring all these kids have good schools, good teachers, good health care, good job opportunities, proper diets, a safe community to play in, and quality peers and mentors. These kids cannot be left so isolated from so much of the foregoing.  And even more daunting, were the proper changes to be made over night, it would be twenty years before we got results. Additionally, we have not become more sharing in our attitudes towards others but more ‘family value’ oriented—where our focus, interaction, and tolerance is more and more directed at, and limited to, our own family and extended family. It has become, everyone for themselves in many ways, and this just makes the situation worse. 

On the other hand, many more people have been given rights which earlier only some had. So the tendency is to feel, ‘we have given all these people more rights, and that is enough—or often, this is actually becomes the blame for them acting ‘out of place’.  As a Lincoln fan I can’t help thinking about how, in his day, all the different cultures, economic status groups, and racial groups were all far more in contact with each other in daily life. Which is not to say that slaves and many non slave children did not grow  up in terribly stressful circumstances. There were plenty of children damaged by their formative years back then. Perhaps this is not the best example. Part 6 (conclusion) will follow.