The Primary Reason Ghetto Kids Are Trapped
In a recent study, I believe in Baltimore, 880 ghetto kids were tracked for 30 years. At the end of 30 years 33 of these kids had managed to no longer live in a ghetto. That’s about a 4% success rate for getting out of the ghetto and being able to live in a more affluent area. Now one study can be suspect, but let’s not quibble here and say the real escape percentage is double that, say 8% or even 10% or even 20%. That means that whatever the cause, ghettos will grow in size, especially since the reproductive rate in any ghetto is higher than in an affluent community. In the last 60 years this is precisely what has happened in our ghettos: they are bigger, more dangerous in which to live, and have become a more stressful environment for kids in their formative years.
Since crime rates and success rates are about the same—no matter whether we talk about black ghettos, hispanic ghettos, or white ghettos we can logically rule out genetic race factors. Ghetto life, for any race, takes a heavy toll. For those ghetto kids who manage to end up in an affluent neighborhood their likelihood of committing crimes of any sort are no different from whites in such affluent neighborhoods. There are more affluent blacks, hispanics, gays, and women than ever before in American history, so it is not like any ‘type’ of American can’t be a successful law abiding citizen.
It seems a tad absurd to take the view, that those who live and rule (if there is such a thing) in these ghettos have the responsibility to change their own neighborhoods into non ghetto neighborhoods—the standard “they can achieve success just like I achieved success—I earned it”. But this seems a bit overblown. The stats say that if these ‘earned it’ achievers had been born in a ghetto, only a small percentage would ever succeed to get out of a ghetto by age 30—no matter their illusions otherwise.
At this point we need ask ourselves “Who is responsible for the existence of these ghettos?” Well, it certainly can’t be blamed on those born in the ghetto: “Look kid, you made bad choices, now pay the consequences, you could have picked different parents, been born into a better neighborhood, gone to better schools, selected better medical care,” and so on. Some insist it is the parent’s fault—they should be better parents, stop having kids raising kids, mothers being crack heads, whatever. But the stats tell us almost all the parents were raised in the ghetto, so the cycle goes round and round and round and so far it never stops, just gets worse. So just where does the responsibility lie to reduce the size and number and harsh conditions of our ghettos? The national government of any nation is ultimately responsible for all the communities within it’s borders. It is no wonder that the wealthiest (top 5%) in our country probably sing the national anthem the loudest, since their income growth since 1975 is 80% while the 30% who earn less than $29,000 have seen their income grow 7% with no adjustments for the cost of living. In reality, the American government since 1975 had geared it’s economic policies to ensure the wealthy can get much wealthier while the middle class and the poor, from whom the money must come, find their income get less and less.
When we see figures that the United States ranks way back in education, happiness, roads, mass transit, etc, we need to realize that we are way back only because in this country the wealthiest have good schools, good health care, private jets, huge houses, and so on. But since 2-5% of our citizens who own 90% of the wealth, there is little money left to raise the living standards of the middle or lower classes. These damn middle and low class citizens ruin our scores in most areas of competition with other industrialized nations. While Scandinavian countries take care of all citizens, we enable the wealthy to become ever more wealthy with less taxation and endless laws to grease their way to even more wealth. The average CEO in America today makes 300 times the salary of the average worker. In a realistic sense, we value CEO’s far more than workers. And as far as our ghettos go, we sort of seal them off, gate them away from more affluent communities and let them fend for themselves. After all, for most of us, we have never done anything directly to hurt, harm, or make life miserable for anyone in any ghetto.
Having designated the national government as having the designated responsibility for all the communities within its boundaries, we have to still answer why these residents of these ghettos don’t just shape up, take a deep breath, and work their way out of a ghetto into an affluent community. Are they lazy, dumb, evil, genetically inferior—I mean, just what is their problem? We all know employees who tried hiring the products of a ghetto but they often throw up their hands and say “these kids are hopeless, have no skills, can’t seem to learn skills, have bad attitudes and are lazy.” Case closed, give them a chance and they blow it.
However, science now knows that these kids who grow up in ghettos are very often damaged physically, mentally, and socially. We watch ghetto people during local riots and wonder “what kind of animals are these people”? They burn down their own neighborhood, they commit vicious crimes on themselves and others, they seem to be devoid of empathy toward anyone, and really, they act like animals. To some extent if you raise children like animals they will end up behaving like animals. This is pure observational and has no scientific basis. But there is plenty of science behind the problem of the ghettos.
It seems, at least to me, that scientific facts trump feelings and simple observations. I know, not today— feelings and ‘alternate’ facts rule the day. If this continues it will also ruin the future for our country. The known science is this: The formative years are crucial for normal human development, especially the central nervous system. When any child (or adult) is subjected to a highly stressful environment the body responds with a typical stress response by releasing stress hormones. I will try to simplify this so the details don’t obscure the main points. These stress hormones are great for sudden acute dangers (flight or fight), but these same hormones are harmful if they are chronically present. What I will try to demonstrate here is that the chronic stress levels in ghetto dwellers have increased substantially in the last 60 years, and this especially damages the children who will be negatively affected the most. What is meant by negatively affected? Well, among other things, a person’s ability to learn can be affected, their ability to remember, their emotional state, their attitudes, their health status, their susceptibility to many kinds of medical problems, their growth, their metabolism in general, their willpower, their ability to stay focused, and their self confidence. Some, but not a lot of children raised in such an environment will suffer minimal damage, often because of parental excellence or genetic factors. The damaged teenagers venture out on their own at the end of their formative years, in many cases, permanently damaged goods. Employers are then exposed to their damaged condition and conclude these ghetto products are bad for the bottom line. They prefer, for the most part, kids that grew up in affluent neighborhoods.
Here I need interject another point. Chronic high levels of stress hormones can be present in some children in affluent neighborhoods, even very wealthy neighborhoods. Kids of very wealthy or nice middle class neighborhoods can be subjected to pressures of various kind which generate chronic high levels of stress hormones, and they can end up damage goods by the end of their formative years also. A significant number of kids from wealthy parents are problem citizens or workers or whatever. It isn’t just kids from the ghettos, although a much higher percentage of ghetto kids will be permanently affected.
One might respond to all this by saying ghettos have always existed and the problems were not as widespread as they are today. This is probably true. I know, when I was young, one could ride through any ghetto—urban, suburban, rural,——and the streets and yards would be teaming with people—kids playing games in the streets, adults of all ages out on their porches, neighborhood picnics all over the place, the kids often went to the same schools as the affluent in the community, and so on. These kids didn’t look or act stressed that much. They were just poor. What held them back in those long ago days was the widespread perception that they were destined to handle the more menial jobs in the community. I don’t recall a single black student in the college prep courses I was in, albeit it is possible there might have been one hidden in there somewhere. Skilled workers had to get in a union for high paying skilled jobs and getting into a union back then was a ‘good ole boys’ kind of selection. Some relative or politician had to sponsor you. Thus even though they might not have been damaged much by high levels of stress hormones in their formative years, opportunities for advancement were limited.
Things have changed substantially in terms of chronic stress hormone levels in today’s modern and much larger ghettos. You ride through these modern ghettoes and it is rare to see any activity—people are all indoors, often behind barred windows and doors. Kids are no longer free to wander about the neighborhood playing with other kids. Kids in ghettos when I was a child did not fear being shot in school or on the sidewalk. Ghettos always have had additional stresses but the level of these stresses is exponentially higher these days.
Part of the picture in America today is this: Adults too are under more stresses. Job security is a lot less. Pensions are often non existent or not secure. Computers, robots, and all sorts of amazing machines have replaced work before done by humans. Until the work week dropped to 40/hrs per week the full time work week fell so that people had more time away from work. But the full time work week has been stuck at 40 hrs/wk for decades even though replacement of workers by other means has continued. Wages for all but the wealthy have not kept up with the cost of living and those earning less than $29,000 have been hurt the most. Minimum wages are not tied to the cost of living so today no single person can live independently on lower level jobs. When I was young, people in lower level jobs could make a living with that job alone. Not today, they need two jobs or both spouses need work. At the low end of the scale, unemployment pay is about as much as some people earn when working a full time job. It is far more difficult today than in the past for huge numbers of people to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Unemployment in some ghettos is over 60%. The cost of taxpayer money to sustain these modern urban, suburban, and rural ghettos is astronomical. Even worse, government aid is based on the premise “Give me a fish and I eat for a day” rather than on “teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. 43% of American adults don’t even earn enough to qualify to pay any federal income tax. Many of the most affluent pay little or no income taxes. Donald Trump calls that ‘being smart”. This picture I paint is brief and not all inclusive, but makes the point. Many adults today suffer chronic emotional pain from the realities of their situations.
The current heroin epidemic is not a case of bad people just looking for a drug high. No, heroin is the perfect drug to change how a person feels about pain. A young father who does not have a big enough income to support his family or can’t get a job, or has been medically damaged in their formative years by chronic high levels of stress hormones will seek heroin for relief. Under heroin they just don’t give a damn anymore or are not bothered by their circumstances as much. Telling these victims of modern day stresses to just say no to heroin is an absurdity. Just as bad, we don’t even warn them not to take sedatives like alcohol while using heroin or they run the risk of having their breathing depressed and death. Then we say the culprit is heroin in order to scare them from continuing to use heroin. The reality is this: we have permitted unhealthy environments for children in ghettos and adults at all levels of society. There is no cure for heroin addiction short of changing the environment which is the cause of the addiction. There is no cure for the medical damage being done to children in a ghetto short of reducing the stress levels on these children before they become damaged.
It is not like we have no way of measuring chronic stress in children or adults. The consequences in children are far greater so we start with them. This is for sure: If we can’t treat chronically high stress hormone levels in children, then the adult future for these children is far more likely to be limited. It is a question of priorities. We are the richest country in the world, albeit 90% of our wealth is now in the hands of 2-5% of our population. We need to have the same attitude Teddy Roosevelt had toward the very wealthy and find a way to limit just how much of our wealth they can sequester into their endlessly greedy hands. Sure a few return much of their wealth to the society from which they got that wealth—like Gates and Buffet— but wealth is more often a compulsive/addictive behavior, beyond the reach of any understanding when enough is enough. This is where a huge amount of our financial wealth now resides, and it gets worse with every passing year. Secondly, we need to adjust our military budget to reflect what is needed to protect this country from attack and let go of military bases all over the world and our habit of invading endless countries in the name of saving them from their own leaders or form of government. We have not won any wars since World War II except Granada and the Balkans. Not only that, but many of the 75 million displaced refugees across the globe are from countries in which we have had military interventions. By the time our smart bombs, missiles, drones, etc have decimated the infrastructure of a country, it is left with some sort of mob rule. This altered priority would probably cut the defense budget in half.
With tons of money now freed up from the two sources in the last paragraph, we can now tackle shrinking the size and nature of our urban, rural, and suburban ghettos. We tend to think of our ghettos as being urban in nature, but widespread poverty levels now exist in most rural areas, and designated areas of our suburban communities. In a very real sense this problem is a national security problem. We, as a nation, cannot allow greater and greater number of our youth be so environmentally deprived as to damage their physical and mental health during their formative years. To put it in more stark terms. When 42% of guns world wide, in the hands of citizens, are in our own citizens hands, we can ill afford nationwide street protests or create a significant portion of our own citizens to choose terrorism as their form of protest. We are, in effect, creating our own genocidal cauldron of discontent. The wealthy may continue to insist that, in a capitalistic system, they can take as much of the nation’s wealth as they wish, but the long term reality is that the needs of society as a whole always trumps the greed of the few.
For a start every child needs good health care, good schools, good teachers, a safe environment, and every other aspect of a community which reduces the stress level of being in a community. Americans need to sacrifice stubborn selfishness and our national government ensure universal good health care to all citizens, the same amount of money spent to educate every child, the same quality of teachers to every child, monitoring the stress hormone levels of every child, a total revisions of teaching methods so that at least half of learning is done on the computer, and teachers be trained and spend half their time directing their attention to those children with chronic high levels of stress hormones in their system. Parents can no longer be the sole determinators of how their child is being raised. Whatever it takes to reduce the chronically high levels of stress hormones in their child will trump all other notions.
Clearly the amount of stress in family lives is related to decent wages, employment opportunities, health related matters, safe neighborhoods for children to play in, and perhaps other areas besides these. This means minimal wage has to be a livable wage and rise with the cost of living just as social security does. Our youth are just as important as the elderly. This also means guaranteed employment at the level of one’s skills. This also means enforced responsible reproduction (a goal requiring a whole new musing) Plus, this means sufficient responsible adult role models for every child. Government can do little about a child’s genetic make-up, his ill-luck regarding the community he lives in or the parents he/she has. Life is not fair that way.
The cost to level the playing fields for all children is steep. But it is just a matter of priorities. It just seems ill-conceived to continually support the cost of military might all over the globe so we can engage in endless invasions which have yet to achieve the desired results. It just seems unconscionable to allow so much wealth to accumulate in the hands of so few. Neither of these priorities will ever make the kind of prosperous and peaceful environment that serves the needs of all citizens.
My career brought me into contact with many young college students whose background often was from an urban ghetto. Those most damaged from the high levels of stress hormones were rarely in any university. What to do with these young people is a real conundrum. The damage is mostly permanent. So the only solution is to not let young people be exposed to these kind of stresses as children. Even those students least damaged from their formative environment were hardly prepared to function well in a university setting. Many had academic potential, but it rarely was maximized by the many hurdles they faced. Often students ill prepared for college would take a full course load, work a 40 hour week and have huge family responsibilities, all of which weighed heavily on their shoulders around the clock. Ironically, in many cases these young people were extremely cooperative, personable, hard working, dependable, honest, and responsible. While many could be helped over some hurdles, and many were, few ever achieved their full career potentials in life. At some point they just gave up and settled for any kind of employment which would enable them to get out of the ghetto. Few of these students have the genetic willpower of a Terrell Owens or the kind of focus he had instilled in him by his grandmother who raised him. Had a Terrell Owens been in my class I would never have had much contact. Virtually on his own he ran over, around, or through every hurdle he faced in life. But most ghetto kids have no such genetic willpower or learned ability to focus so clearly on the task at hand. They need help and a level playing field and they seldom get it. Naturally, many then call the attitude of a Terrell Owens self serving, inappropriate, and annoying. Who the hell does he think he is? Well, he is a rare product of the ghetto who manages to get out essentially on his own willpower and focus. He had little athletic ability before college so he was not a pampered athlete in his formative years like most athletic stars were.
Ghettos will be reduced in size and sometimes vanish when every child born in these ghettos gets good health care, good schools, good teachers, and have parents who have job opportunities at living wages, plus have ample quality adult role models, and safe places to play, and job opportunities as teenagers. Part of any responsible reproduction program will likely include parents who love raising children and thus will not only raise their own but participate in helping those parents who need help raising their children. There is nothing wrong with volunteer grandparents, uncles, aunts, big brothers, big sisters, and so on. When residents have access to living wage jobs and good health care, there is little need for heroin addictions or criminal acts, etc.
In the long run everything touched upon in this memo will get sorted out via the evolutionary process which is controlled by the laws created by God (however one defines God). It is not like evolution is about to be tanked. Time stays, We Go. Humans like to create a God in their own image, that being always one in which we as individuals are important and control the future, that no matter how we personally act we can always be forgiven and go to Heaven—if we give lip service to some inherited religion. The reality appears to be that God doesn’t depend on any of us personally for a damned thing. If Lincoln hadn’t engineered the elimination of slavery somebody else would have down the line. The only thing in life we can really achieve as individuals is varied degrees of contentment, and this we cannot do by ourselves. Those who let the inherent human ethical principle of the Golden Rule guide their lives will end up with the greatest contentment. He who gives in varied way to the less fortunate receives as much contentment as those who receive the help.
While the reality may be that humans, at this stage in the evolutionary process, are incapable of most of the above in this musing, this has no bearing on the eventual future of life on this planet. The religious conservatives of every century were opposed to many progressive changes and insisted the changes would never happen. The earth was flat, slavery would never be eliminated, women would never be allowed to vote, children would always be under the sole stewardship of parents and could work in sweat factories as needed, blacks would never be in desegregated schools, some adults would never be allowed to marry the person of their choice, etc. Yet over time, human society changed and all these things came to pass, at least in our country.
Many, probably most, still pray for good things to happen to themselves or the less fortunate, but there is zero evidence that God singles out anyone for exemption from His/Her/Its laws which govern the process. What we do have, which is no small power, is to collectively help those less fortunate (genetically, environmentally, good or bad luck) to achieve some success and contentment in their lives. It is of course easier to pray for God to do this and free us to live more self serving lives via family values, patriotic and religious illusions—almost all geared to giving ourselves, or our group, all the advantages possible, with minimal concern or help given to those most in need.
Despite being outnumbered, those who base their lives around the Golden Rule, nevertheless achieve the most contentment in life, and give us a glimpse as to how things will eventually become, down a distant road, as the evolutionary process weeds out all this self serving and genocidal human behavior.
With all the above as testimony, we can understand that the primary reason ghetto kids are trapped and often doomed as productive law abiding citizens is because governments have not accepted the responsibility for these communities. For this we will shortly pay the piper.
