In the ridged and shocking book that follows the lives of impoverished African American children, There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz accurately displays what life can be like for those who are not as fortunate as some. The story is set in the inner city of Chicago in and around 1987, and pivots around drug violence and the nightmare that is living in the Henry Horner housing project. Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, two brothers who were born into the life of poverty, are followed throughout this true story. The two live with their mother, LaJoe, and their six siblings (while some come and go, between jail and other places). Their father, Paul, is seldom around due to his alcoholism and drug addiction. It seems as if Pharoah and Lafayette Considering the documentary only centers around young African Americans, and the majority (if not all) of the individuals that resided in Henry Horner were African American, race plays a huge factor in the life chances of those who grow up in the inner city of Chicago. The demographic of those living in poverty in this book represent that there is a serious issue with society and that Pharoah and Lafayette cannot simply overcome poverty by working hard. According to the text LaJoe, their mother, has eight children (Kotlowitz 10), three of which were circulating in and out of jail at the time. The children are essentially born into a difficult cycle, which is hard to break, due to negligence and the systematic racism that existed at that point in time, and still prevails today. There even existed a rumor that the boys would shoot at the train windows as it passed through the neighborhoods, which were often “blighted”, while the young boys had heard that the passengers on the train would shoot at them (Kotlowitz 7). However, this rumor may not have ever surged had the boys been white. The police also proved to be a potential enemy to the young people growing up in Henry Horner. Near the end of the book, at the stadium, a white office called Lafayette a “n*gger” when he was receiving money to flag in cars to the parking lot (Kotlowitz 160). Not only did the cop call Lafayette the unforgivable racist slur, he continued to kick him into a puddle of water and grab him by his jacket collar. Race played an enormous factor in the lives of this
When the people laugh at these kids, they are exemplifying an implicit social view of the African Americans: it’s one of contemptuous amusement for the people on the bus. James plays into this negative view of African Americans by pretending to hit her and having the people laugh at them again when the girl ducks down beside her mother (232). This exchange shows how conscious James is of what White people think of him, e.g., “ I look toward the front where all the white people
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
“The Lost Children of Wilder” is a book about how the foster care system failed to give children of color the facilities that would help them lead a somewhat normal and protected life. The story of Shirley Wilder is a sad one once you find out what kind of life she had to live when she was a young girl. Having no mother and rejected by her father she has become a troubled girl.
Lucy believes that even though she has gone through so much pain throughout her life, it can always be worse; there are people having more difficulties in their lives. For example, she brings up this ideology when she is watching the horrors of Cambodia loomed on TV. She expresses that “she feels lucky to at least have food, clothes, and a home” in comparison to these people that have nothing. In addition, she mentions how great would it be if people stop complaining about their situations and see how much they have already; “how they have health and strength.” Likewise, James expresses a positive view about the African American outcome after the slavery period. He realizes that the acceptance of the black man in society “not only has created a new black man, but also a new white man.” He’s not a stranger anymore in America; he’s part of a new nation. Because of this achievement, he concludes, “this world is no longer white, and it will never be white
Kotlowitz does an excellent job portraying how demoralizing life in the ghetto really is. Through showing what the children of the book go through, Kotlowitz remains very neutral. He bestows the thoughts, fears, and hopes of inner-city children that normally are not exposed to those who do not live in these circumstances. Lafayette and Pharoah are only two of the thousands of children suffering in these disturbing conditions. The Chicago Housing Authority did go in and clean up the buildings, but without accessible money there is not that much that can be done. The children born into poverty cannot overcome the situation, unless they are provided with the means and opportunities to do so.
The West side of Chicago, Harlem, Watts, Roxbury, and Detroit. What do all of these areas have in common? These areas, along with many others have become mine fields for the explosive issues of race, values, and community responsibility, led by the plight of the urban underclass. Issues such as violent crime, social separation, welfare dependence, drug wars, and unemployment all play a major role in the plight of American inner-city life. Alex Kotlowitz's book: There Are No Children Here, confronts America's devastated urban life; a most painful issue in America. Kotlowitz traces the lives of two black boys; 10 year old LaFayette, and 7 year old Pharoah, as they struggle to beat the odds growing up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Their family includes a welfare dependent mother, an alcholic-drug using father, an older sister, an older brother, and younger triplets. Kotlowoitz describes the horrors of an ill-maintained housing project completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are an everyday thing. Kotlowitz does a fine job at portraying ghetto life; those who are outside the American dream. He succeeds at putting a face on th people trapped inside the housing projects with virtually no hope of escape. One can truly feel a sense of great loss for the family, and a great deal of hope for the two young boys. You can truly feel yourself hoping that things will work out for them, and you can really feel like you know these young men on a personal basis. Kotlowotz spent a great deal of time with the boys so he could portray the world from the eyes of a child growing up in the ghetto, and he does an amazing job.
George Saunders, a writer with a particular inclination in modern America, carefully depicts the newly-emerged working class of America and its poor living condition in his literary works. By blending fact with fiction, Saunders intentionally chooses to expose the working class’s hardship, which greatly caused by poverty and illiteracy, through a satirical approach to criticize realistic contemporary situations. In his short story “Sea Oak,” the narrator Thomas who works at a strip club and his elder aunt Bernie who works at Drugtown for minimum are the only two contributors to their impoverished family. Thus, this family of six, including two babies, is only capable to afford a ragged house at Sea Oak,
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W...
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
In the novel A Lesson Before Dying, Grant and Jefferson are black men in the era of a racist society; but they have struggles with a greater dilemma, obligation and commitment. They have obligations to their families and to the town they are part of. They lived in a town were everybody knew everybody else and took care of each other. "Living and teaching on a plantation, you got to know the occupants of every house, and you knew who was home and who was not.... I could look at the smoke rising from each chimney or I could look at the rusted tin roof of each house, and I could tell the lives that went on in each one of them." [pp. 37-38] Just by Grant’s words you can tell that that is a community that is very devoted to each other.
Could the dysfunction of the Walls family have fostered the extraordinary resilience and strength of the three older siblings through a collaborative set of rites of passage? One could argue that the unusual and destructive behavior of the parents forced the children into a unique collection of rites of passage that resulted in surprisingly resilient and successful adults. In moving back to Welch, Virginia, the children lost what minimal sense of security they may have enjoyed while living in their grandmother’s home in Arizona. The culture and climate (both socially and environmentally) along with an increased awareness of their poverty resulted in a significant loss of identity. As they learned new social and survival skills in this desperate environment, there is a powerful sense of camaraderie between the older children. Their awareness, drive and cunning survival skills while living in Welch result in a developing sense of confidence in their ability to survive anything. This transition, while wretched, sets the stage for their ability to leave their environment behind with little concern for a lack of success. As the children leave, one by one, to New York, they continue to support one another, and emerge as capable, resourceful young adults.
After getting the apartment on 116th Street Lutie didn’t know what her next step would be. She didn’t know how long she would stay there. They had just enough money to pay rent, buy food and clothes. Being locked into poverty enables Lutie from seeing a future. “She couldn’t see anything but 116th Street and a job that paid barely enough for food and rent and a handful of clothes. “(147). This world she was living contrasts with places that were “filled with sunlight and good food and where children were safe was fenced off to African-Americans so people like Lutie could only look at it with no expectation of ever being able to have it.”(147). Lutie came to the realization as to why white people hate black people so much. It is because they are entitled to white privilege at birth. Take McIntosh’s “White Privilege-Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” into account. McIntosh describes white privilege as invisible things that we are taught not to see. For example Mrs. Chandler, who employs Lutie as her maid. Mrs. Chandler has an advantage over Lutie, which puts Lutie at a disadvantage. People of the dominant society like The Chandlers have a “pattern running through the matrix of white privilege” (McIntosh), a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to them as a white person. “[The Chandlers] are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and also ideal.”(McIntosh). In proportion as The
Carolina told about two boys wandering the streets of the favela who were from shelters in the city. At the shelters, there were innocent children abandoned or orphaned, but also there were young criminals sentenced to stay there. Both groups were thrown together and treated as though they all had prison sentences. Carolina wrote, “I felt that in the State Shelter the children’s morals were lowered. […] What’s lacking? Concern for the unfortunate or money from the State?” (81). Whether it was babies dying in the favela, or children growing into poverty, the families of favelados were destined for misfortune. Carolina’s older children were still in school, but they contributed to the family income, as was common at the time, by going out to beg or to collect paper and scrap with her. Favelas of Brazil bred the destruction of innocence and children grew up quickly, such as when “the son of Joaquim went to school drunk” (130). Intersectionality of race and class was also pertinent. Racism and classism prevented poor, impoverished children from receiving any opportunities to improve their
Jordan attends an elite private school and an exclusive summer camp. So as much as I want to believe that our upper-middle-class status will protect my son from many of society’s social ills, it could not provide him the white privilege he seeks.” (Canedy 887 )Even though Canedy sent her child to a private school and lived in a big house, she believes that the racism wouldn’t affect him. similar to canedy, Chung worries about racism affecting her children Chung wanted to keep people with racist comments away from her kids. “I consider my children, who probably aren’t tracking this conversation — not just because they don’t watch the television show in question, but because they are still young and, for all our intra-family conversations about racism, they do not yet expect to encounter it in their everyday lives. I generally try to push back when someone says something offensive in their earshot, especially when it’s something I think they might understand.” (Chung) Canedy’s son being afraid of accepting his race is a good example of the problems racism causes the color people to want to be “white” because they have many opportunities that color people don’t if we go back to segregation the whites were able to go to good school and have nice house while “color” wasn’t able to, Many “color