Hell-o, Old Fart: A post to http://musingsofanoldfart.wordpress.com

Hell-o, Old Fart,

I just found your blogs as I was googling The Power of Habits and came across your post. Since then, I have been reading your other posts, heading toward the most recent. When I am caught up with the current posts, I’ll go back to the first one I found and backtrack. Seems like a plan.

I just finished reading your post, American Winter clearly defines what poverty looks like. I feel the need to commence a dialogue with you starting with it as the basis. Other posts will inevitably follow, as you are a terrific writer with compelling insights, and the thought of dialoguing with you is delightful.

I live in Tennessee, where the most uncaring among us all seem to work in the same industry: politics. With child poverty over 20%  statewide and near 50% poverty in pockets like Memphis, one would think that elected officials would be working overtime to resolve the issue, if only for the horrific long-term trends it portends. Instead, they cry out for cuts in vital programs and the need for austerity.

Study after study points out the link between poverty and poor performance in school. Study after study link poor performance in reading in third grade to school dropout rates and further correlates to the increase in prison populations. Yet, the budget takes priority. 

in the late ‘90s, Dr. Eddie Green, interim Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools,  spoke to an audience of well-to-do Rotarians in adjacent Troy, MI. He began by saying (I paraphrase here), “On any given day in the City of Detroit, no education takes place. A child coming to school, his last meal, lunch the day before, is thinking about lunch, not math or reading. Many of our children arrive at school on Monday morning, their last meal was lunch the previous Friday. They are not prepared to learn. 

“ On any given day in the City of Detroit, no education takes place. Children come to school in winter without coats. Their bodies shiver a good portion of the morning until the warmth settles in. Before the last bell rings, those same bodies again shiver, in anticipation of the trip home.

“On any given day in the City of Detroit, no education takes place. When squad cars fill the street corners adjacent to their school while a drug bust takes place, the school is in lockdown. No earning takes place.”

In 2013, in cities and towns across the nation, no learning takes place, for many of the same reasons and more. To them we add mass shootings.

Poverty kills. It kills bodies, minds and spirits. What it doesn’t kill it damages beyond repair. When the numbers of poor reach the tipping point, where barely adequate social nets no longer hold together, the people perish. Fortunately for many, they do so out of sight. Statistics on a page.