One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned was that if you really want to solve a problem, you must start at the origins of it. Rather than spending time wrestling with the effects of a bigger issue, one should focus on the source of hardship, and that will usually eliminate any resulting side issues.
Apparently, America skipped school the day that lesson was taught.
We live in a nation with high incarceration rates, high obesity rates, drug problems and questionable high school curriculums. America has dedicated countless funds, bills and infomercials to ending all these issues, but the problems seem to be going nowhere.
Why? Because they are just the results of something larger: poverty.
Poverty brews mis-education
Raggedy books. Prison-style windows. Unheated buildings. Teachers more concerned with discipline than academics. All of these are common sights in America’s inner-city schools. Because these areas are low-income, with not as much tax money and neighborhood support going to their schools, they often have outdated books and a piteous curriculum with limited advanced placement courses, little emphasis on higher education and overfilled classes.
Suburban schools don’t feel these same effects — just ask anyone who went to Lake Oswego, or anyone who went to a suburban school in Baltimore, Md. According to a 2008 report from CBS News, 81.5 percent of the public school students in Baltimore’s suburbs graduate, compared to just 34.6 within Baltimore’s inner-city schools.
Ouch.
Because people are living in poor areas, they are much less likely to graduate (17 of the nation’s 50 largest cities had graduation rates lower than 50 percent). Poverty has a direct relationship to poor education, because of our schools’ dependency on regional taxation and neighborhood support. If your area cannot afford to pour a lot of tax money into schools and extra curricular programs — too bad. All our nation has to say then is, “Good luck earning your GED.”
Poverty leads to crime and incarceration
From great poverty arises great desperation. As we saw, many inner-city children were never taught to appreciate an education, and in turn, weren’t granted the necessary skills to succeed in society.
No money, no school and endless pressure to survive create a perfect storm for a life of crime.
America has the highest rate of intentional gun deaths in the world — not coincidentally, America also has the worst distribution of wealth amongst industrialized nations, and one of the highest poverty rates.
The formula is clear: High poverty plus high needs equals high crime rate.
Understand that I do not support any type of drug distribution, violent crime or illegal behavior of this nature. But if I am ever hungry, jobless and have children to feed, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to make those ends meet. Sure, it’s easy for us, sitting in this academic fantasy world, to sit on our high horses and speak lowly upon what some people do to survive in poverty-stricken areas; but you know, if you grew up the way some of those kids grew up, maybe you’d be able to understand.
Our nation continues to fight crime and drug distribution with stiffening laws, a hypocritical death sentence and even a “war on drugs.” But a war on poverty would have far greater effects on reducing our crime rate than any of the current methods of crime prevention.
And to think, they wouldn’t have to send 2 million Americans behind bars in the process.
Poverty is not earned. It is ascribed.
Because of poverty, you are more likely to be both malnourished and obese, to be robbed and convicted of robbery, and to be caught both selling and using drugs. When you are poor, you have the highest potential to be the criminal and victim — and this award is ascribed to us at birth.
According to heartsandminds.org, one in four children lives below the official poverty line. That means one in four children is at a higher risk of all the previously mentioned issues by birth right. Combine that with a culmination of studies that indicate that when you are born poor, you most likely will stay poor, and a horrible truth is realized. One in four of all American children are at a very high risk of falling victim to all of our greatest social problems, just because they were born into certain families and certain areas.
Completely unfair, and directly contradicting the romanticized dreams of the American way.
A fat, dumb nation
The issue of poverty is the single greatest problem in our society, yet it is cast aside and overshadowed by its more visible aftermath. Nothing can be solved without the understanding of origins. If America cannot pull together and fight poverty as a nation, it will continue to grow more obese, more stupid and more violent.
To cure poverty is to cure America.
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