Study: growing up in bad neighborhoods has a devastating impact

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
....And some of those children are afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, from the constant fear of being harmed, and hearing gunshots in the parking lot as they try to sleep at night. It's a very stressful environment; not at all conducive for developing a healthy personality.

Thank you for posting this.

The level of psychological problems within these poor communities is astounding and a lot of these kids do not receive any help for their problems.

It is not easy as "self determination" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" when you are psychologically messed up from what has happened to you. Some folks make it but many, many don't. Some kids will be in the criminal justice system from the time they are 12-13 years old! Lets see how well those guys will do eh, when they cannot get a job and will be forced into drug dealing or robbery to survive. Some of you folks are #ing clueless.

If you believe otherwise, get off of your high horses and volunteer in this communities. Work with these kids. If you don't come back a little bit shaken or disturbed, you're a sociopath.

You want to know why young inner city black males and females cannot function in a workplace, or react violently to situations that do not call for that kind of response? Volunteer, and hear some of the horror that takes places in these communities. You'll think twice.

Originally posted by illuminatislave
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Just because there are tuition programs out there doesn't mean that it's not an uphill struggle, that's disingenuous and silly.

You fail to think about other factors, including what goes on in the home, lack of nutrition, psychological issues, etc. I have worked with kids in these areas and I am telling you that a lot of them are mentally #ed up beyond all belief. You made it from your poor upbringing and I applaud you, so did I. But what happened for us has nothing to do with what is happening to poor American children RIGHT NOW.

Stop thinking that your plight is the same as others. Stop being naive.

The problems these people suffer are of their own making. They refuse to do anything for themselves, and persist in believing the World owes them a living. Rather than try to improve their lot in life, they choose to blame others and make excuses for the horrible living conditions they live in.

Does it really take money to clean up the trash around your home, stop painting graffiti on the walls, stop victimizing your fellow neighbors for what little they own? Does it cost anything to go to school and learn how to read and write so you don't remain ignorant of the World around you? Does it cost anything to let those who wish to better themselves do so? Is sitting on your butt drawing welfare even attempting to improve yourself or is it just a way of perpetuating the cycle of poverty?

Nothing changes if nothing changes.. It's the mindset they have that keeps them where they are. Nobody can help you if you can't see or acknowledge that there is in fact a problem.

I live in a suburban community and it helps me a lot, because i have been surounded by prople trying to better themself. The hood needs more rolemodels. Its the young youths that make the future. so if the projects have more people that would actually strive harder it would make the youths think better of them selvs and give them a guide line to with thier lives.
parents For exsample, If thier parents werent on welfare and were properly funded to raise thier kids, alot of the youths wouldnt be into crimes, gangs, violence, to survive and help their parents out.

Originally posted by illuminatislave


It is not easy as "self determination" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" when you are psychologically messed up from what has happened to you. Some folks make it but many, many don't. Some kids will be in the criminal justice system from the time they are 12-13 years old! Lets see how well those guys will do eh, when they cannot get a job and will be forced into drug dealing or robbery to survive. Some of you folks are #ing clueless.

Nobody can force you to commit crimes, it's a distinctly personal choice. Rather than victimize someone who probably has no more than you, put your pride in your pocket and ask for some help. Poverty doesn't account for the crimes or rape, vandalism, or murder either. Those are personal choices as well. None of them are going to put food on your table, pay your rent, or buy clothing for your kids.

If you believe otherwise, get off of your high horses and volunteer in this communities. Work with these kids. If you don't come back a little bit shaken or disturbed, you're a sociopath.

You'll be lucky if you come back in one piece if you happen to visit the wrong neighborhood. They won't appreciate your efforts, and will only see you as just another silly, naive do-gooder to hustle for some money.

You want to know why young inner city black males and females cannot function in a workplace, or react violently to situations that do not call for that kind of response? Volunteer, and hear some of the horror that takes places in these communities. You'll think twice.

edit on 5-10-2011 by illuminatislave because: (no reason given)

If you're hungry enough you'll learn to control your behavior, but as long as there are people like you that make excuses for them, they'll continue to act this way.

Originally posted by Redwing48

Originally posted by illuminatislave
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Just because there are tuition programs out there doesn't mean that it's not an uphill struggle, that's disingenuous and silly.

You fail to think about other factors, including what goes on in the home, lack of nutrition, psychological issues, etc. I have worked with kids in these areas and I am telling you that a lot of them are mentally #ed up beyond all belief. You made it from your poor upbringing and I applaud you, so did I. But what happened for us has nothing to do with what is happening to poor American children RIGHT NOW.

Stop thinking that your plight is the same as others. Stop being naive.

The problems these people suffer are of their own making. They refuse to do anything for themselves, and persist in believing the World owes them a living. Rather than try to improve their lot in life, they choose to blame others and make excuses for the horrible living conditions they live in.

Does it really take money to clean up the trash around your home, stop painting graffiti on the walls, stop victimizing your fellow neighbors for what little they own? Does it cost anything to go to school and learn how to read and write so you don't remain ignorant of the World around you? Does it cost anything to let those who wish to better themselves do so? Is sitting on your butt drawing welfare even attempting to improve yourself or is it just a way of perpetuating the cycle of poverty?

Nothing changes if nothing changes.. It's the mindset they have that keeps them where they are. Nobody can help you if you can't see or acknowledge that there is in fact a problem.

You are right. but the problem isnt that they dont want to do it, its that more individuals have the tendacy to do wrong becasue the wrong help them survive another day. Everyday the kids have to survive from being killed by their own peers. So imagine going to school could get you killed or if your removing gang graffii could offend the gangsters. So cleaning up the hood could put you in danger. And since people are trying to survive that wouldnt be good idea.
Before someone could actually help others they have to survive on their own and since most of the time this doesnt help.

They had to do a study on this? It seems like common sense to me.

Speaking from experience, I used to live in a bad neighborhood in Hawthorne Ca. So glad we got out.

reply to post by Maxmars


When there is a will there is a way. Meanwhile not all people who live in poor areas would follow the wrong path willingly, even if they have a chance to succeed, a lot of young people do not take that chance to get out of their bad situation, and instead follow the criminal ways because "it's what they brother/cousin/friends/father/etc did."

The mayority of these youngsters see the world of higher education as "only the world of the rich" which they want nothing to do with.

This is all about PERSONAL CHOICE. We really need to stop feeding this "projection game" that certain groups in society, and so many people keep instilling on others, and more so on the poor.

We need to stop giving "excuses" to anyone, and everyone. People do what they want to do, no matter their background, and what they went through.

We need to start instilling once again PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY on the younger generations, otherwise not too far in the future we are going to have even large "ghettos" and poor neighborhoods where people stop caring completely about everything and everyone, and such people decide to keep blaming "their parents, the rich, society, insert any other excuse here" for WHAT THEY CHOSE TO DO THEMSELVES.

Meanwhile a portion of society keeps shifting PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and keep blaming "society, parents, being poor, etc" many of those people living under those conditions will believe this is true, and will continue blaming "their parents, society, the rich, etc" EVERYONE except the person who chose their path.

I was, alongside millions of other people, raised in a poor home, actually was born in a communist country where everyone is poor and food was/is lacking.

I was raised in a poor home, and so poor in fact that for years the roof to the attic where we were living in Spain, after we moved there from Cuba, was made from plastic and in winters when my mon would put the clothes in the clothesline, in the attic, in a few hours the clothes would be frozen solid if my mon wasn't quick enough.

I spend many Christmas, and holidays alone and without gifts most of the time because my parents had to work to put some food in the table, and to pay for the attic/appartment.

I was in schools where pretty much almost every other day I was in a fight, and I wouldn't start them, sometimes with Gitanos/Gypsies, sometimes with other payos/white children from the same areas.

Yet I didn't turn into a ciminal, I did my best in school, earned two years of college because I graduated with honors from high school, lost those two years of free college because when I arrived in the states the social worker that took our case put my middle name first, and my first name as if it was my middle name, and this was found out by the school board a week or so after I started college.

Then my mother had an accident and couldn't work so I had to stop trying to go to college and had to get a full time job even working late at night just to help my parents.

I joined the Navy, went to college again and this time i was able to finish it, got an education and graduated with honors. Yet not once did I resort to become a criminal and I didn't blame society, didn't wallow in self pity, or projected my problems by blaming them unto others.

I am not blaming society for becoming disabled either.

Like me, and even some people who had it, or have it worse than me, millions of people took it upon themselves to try their best despite what life, and the world decided to throw at them.

People need to take responsibility for their actions, and society, and the left, need to stop trying to project the blame unto others for the actions, and paths CHOSEN by individuals, and instead PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY needs to be instilled upon the young once again.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Can't speak about life in the US, but in the UK I grew up in a bad area and then lived in another bad area and I can tell you now, it's not the area that causes this, but the family. How your parents are! How you're brought up! Your attitude, your perspective of the world, your views on people around you, on life in general, have their origins within your childhood and primarily, how you're brought up, I strongly believe this. I lived in a bad area but I was told that you earn your keep or you'll have none. I never blamed anything or anyone for my misfortunes in life and viewed the negative as experience and to learn from it.
There were many around me, in the same road, same area, that viewed life differently. That viewed a world that owed them a living. Whose parents told them that they would amount to nothing simply because of everyone else, so to take what they can regardless.
I see this attitude even more so today than I did when I was younger.

The problem is never the area, the problem is the people in those areas.

I also hope the British government read this and the local councils. They seem determined to make all areas bad areas simply by spreading the people responsible for making areas bad to the good areas! This will not change those people, but it will change those good areas!

People from the hood are not dumb. If you take any smart person from the hood and place them in a modern day community they will achieve so much more than most people that are raised into it. They appreciate much more and have survival as the top priority. I have friends that came from the hood and is more spiritual and smarter than many poeple that i know. they know how to beat the system, because they have been doing it all their life.
Becasue all the youths' peers are going down hill, they will to.If you take out that factor they have the potential to be something great. Most of the time its not what you know but who you know

Originally posted by illuminatislave
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Just because there are tuition programs out there doesn't mean that it's not an uphill struggle, that's disingenuous and silly.

You fail to think about other factors, including what goes on in the home, lack of nutrition, psychological issues, etc. I have worked with kids in these areas and I am telling you that a lot of them are mentally #ed up beyond all belief. You made it from your poor upbringing and I applaud you, so did I. But what happened for us has nothing to do with what is happening to poor American children RIGHT NOW.

Stop thinking that your plight is the same as others. Stop being naive.

Lack of nutirition, psychological issues, etc. is exactly what I went through. You diminished my experience because you did not understand what I was saying. I understand their "plight" very well because it is the same as what mine was. Is it hard to understand that when I said I was called "white trash" it was the very definition that people make fun of today? Since you were not in my experience growing up I can understand you may not realize what I was saying.

When you have children who go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, go to school hungry and being fed only their school lunch as their only meal of the day, yes, there are psychological effects and nutrition disorders that lead to intellectual challenges. That is my experience. No, it is not naivete on my part because I fully get it what they are going through.

I think in this country there is a misconception that white people do not go hungry like black people and white people are not as impoverished as any other group of people. You are talking to someone here who was physically and sexually abused as a child. You are talking to a person who went hungry day after day. You are talking to someone who was bullied in school for being "white trash". But you are talking to someone who made a choice to not live like that as an adult.

Naive? I think not.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse
You have summed the problem up very nicely. What's lacking nowadays is personal accountability. Neer do wells, that have no real understanding of the situation are often too quick in providing them with excuses for their personal failures. Rather than show them that the root of their problems lie in their own attitudes and behaviors, they join them in blaming society for all their woes.

Afterwards, they return to their gated communities feeling all warm and fuzzy inside because they THINK they've helped these poor, underprivileged people out. Like all their problems, Their solution is to keep pumping millions of dollars into useless social services programs that just perpetuate their sense of entitlement and learned helplessness.

When they eventually are victimized by one of these individuals after all their GOOD deeds, they want to lower the boom on them, secure in the knowledge that they're hopeless and beyond help. It's the difference between a liberal and a conservative.. a conservative is a liberal that's been mugged.

No offense, but I don't think we needed a study in order to be able to discuss this. Anyone with half a brain can make the relation to poor/lack of jobs, means resorting to crime, means kids exposed to crime etc.

Originally posted by illuminatislave

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting



If you believe otherwise, get off of your high horses and volunteer in this communities. Work with these kids. If you don't come back a little bit shaken or disturbed, you're a sociopath.

You want to know why young inner city black males and females cannot function in a workplace

I worked as an English tutor in a college in Cincinnati. Do you want me to cite specific incidents of attitudes? Where do you want me to start when it comes to attitudes?

I have to say I have seen the gamut of inner city attitudes and some of the kids are very nice and work very hard to get good grades. And might I just add...Tyler Perry. Nuff said.

reply to post by illuminatislave
If you really want to help people who are in this situation, try teaching them about accountability. We're all responsible for our own actions. You make the choices and you must own the responsibility for it. You can't go through life blaming others for your problems or making excuses for your behavior.

Sure, rich people have more advantages, but that's life. It doesn't mean you can't better yourself or improve your own situation with a lot of hard work. The truth is, some people are born smarter, some people are born stronger, some people are born better looking, some people are born richer. The answer isn't to hobble them and make excuses for yourself. You must do the best with what you have, and try a lot harder than they do. Maybe you'll never be as smart, strong, rich, or good looking as them, but you'll be able to hold your head up and say "I tried" and didn't wallow around in a pool of self-pity.

reply to post by Redwing48

Good post. As they say, the lord helps those who help themselves.

There're waves in life that bring good fortune. Sometimes it takes a while for them to come.

If you keep trying and keep your head up, eventually it'll get good and you'll hit a wave.

If you stop and give up and blame everybody else, you certainly won't hit that next wave.

There's another saying: Chance favors the prepared. Opportunity comes to those who try.

These're good proverbs to keep with you as you struggle up the mountain to tis summit.

If you think about it, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep telling yourself that others are to blame when you're the one to blame then you won't learn how to succeed. Similarly, if you see a problem then you address it. If you address the wrong thing then the problem isn't fixed.

People who're critical of welfare and government help aren't sociopaths or hateful. There's a lot of love inside us. But we know that you cannot teach a man how to fish by giving him a fish. You have to show him how to fish. On the same level, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. These're life truths that generations have handed down from experience.

If a man gives up, that's his choice. If he starves to death, don't intervene. Not unless it's obvious it wasn't his fault. In the end, we cannot look after everybody on the planet. We cannot afford to. People have to be able to care for themselves and do the right thing. We have to keep our distance to facilitate this. Often, painful life lessons cannot be communicated or taught, either.

I'll go over again what I just said about not being able to afford humanitarian aide - especially misguided aide. If there was some way to feed everyone and cloth them and give them shelter and educate them and do all of that without putting a dent in my wallet, I'd go along with it. But I do not believe that's possible. Life is expensive and not freely exchanged. Fact. Therefore, we have to be self-motivated and individuals have to earn those things rather than be given them.

After all, the world will not build itself. We have to work. It's not handed to us. Want to travel to space? Who is going to build the rocket? Who going to provide the fuel? Want to have a baby? Where is the women? How is she going to find enough food and water and shelter to live long enough to be an adult of child-bearing age? Who is going to look after the child and care for it? Want to live in a fancy home? Who is going to cut down the trees for the wood or mine the stone for the cement? Who is going to build it? Who is going to maintain it? Want to write a book? No one will write it for you! And so on. Things don't build and maintain themselves!!

And dreams and visions. We often don't just build things to build things. Somebody dreamed about it. We dreamed about space travel before we achieved it. We dreamed about cellphones before we made them. We dreamed about submarines before they existed. We dreamed of other world like earth around other stars before we knew that they WERE in fact there. We dreamed of many things before they existed. The dreams help to motivate us to work so that the dream can be real. So dreams are a big part of this life. Without the dream all this around us would just be numbers and procedures. It wouldn't be human at all. So motivated people also need dreams. That man that I linked in my earlier post, here, he had a dream that was inspired by Star Trek. He didn't come to america with $50 and pure luck, he came here with a dream. He had spirit.

And come to think of it, most males dream of sex before they actually do it.

Originally posted by DrumsRfun
reply to post by Maxmars

 

That article is exactly why i have been saying that alot of ghetto type areas would benefit from more funding for education.
(it seems to me that is a big factor)
More school programs,more money to fund these programs and more diligence in teaching and caring and it might make a big difference.

The money needs to flow first.

teaching starts at home, when the parents don't sit down and help their kids and insist that they do their homework and go to school it does not matter how much money you throw at it , it will fail

There are two constants I have found.

a: I have never traveled to a black country or majority area that is decent. The last place I went was mali where people would walk a couple of blocks and pay money to crap in a hole next to the presidential palace.

b: I would never want to live in a muslim country - the nicest one I have ever been to is Malaysia and the average person there is scared and dreams of our limited freedoms on america

the only way to solve poverty is to fix what creates it, lower intelligence and lower standards of accepted living. They can teach people in the hood to live productive lives based on there inherent skills whatever they may be farming or automotive repair.

the answer is not to claim black people are opressed.

Three words: Fundamental Attribution Error.

All of you are so concerned with blaming the victim that you forgo situational factors, which are infinitely more important in the grand scheme of things.

A persons value does not differ for the that they didn't "try hard enough". Thats a shallow perspective that sheds absolutely no light on the societal issues that are at the crux of the problem.

Capitalism, as it exists in America today, doesn't work. It's broken. Its no longer a viable solution. Anyone who fails to see that is purposefully blinding themselves, has no social conscious, or is a psychopath.

Originally posted by SPACEYstranger
Three words: Fundamental Attribution Error.

All of you are so concerned with blaming the victim that you forgo situational factors, which are infinitely more important in the grand scheme of things.

A persons value does not differ for the that they didn't "try hard enough". Thats a shallow perspective that sheds absolutely no light on the societal issues that are at the crux of the problem.

Capitalism, as it exists in America today, doesn't work. It's broken. Its no longer a viable solution. Anyone who fails to see that is purposefully blinding themselves, has no social conscious, or is a psychopath.

Yeah, I pretty much picked up on the psychopathic part from some of these responses. They ignored every point that was made and prattled on using the same old tired conservative talking points. Not one person addressed the issue of psychological trauma that these kids go through in the street, at home, or in school. I would too if I wanted to stick my ears in my fingers and pretend that there's more to the plight of the poor than just "laziness" and "personal choice".

It is what it is.

Originally posted by Redwing48
reply to post by illuminatislave

 

If you really want to help people who are in this situation, try teaching them about accountability. We're all responsible for our own actions. You make the choices and you must own the responsibility for it. You can't go through life blaming others for your problems or making excuses for your behavior.

Sure, rich people have more advantages, but that's life. It doesn't mean you can't better yourself or improve your own situation with a lot of hard work. The truth is, some people are born smarter, some people are born stronger, some people are born better looking, some people are born richer. The answer isn't to hobble them and make excuses for yourself. You must do the best with what you have, and try a lot harder than they do. Maybe you'll never be as smart, strong, rich, or good looking as them, but you'll be able to hold your head up and say "I tried" and didn't wallow around in a pool of self-pity.

This is not about excuses you buffoon, it is about the systemic reasons as to why you have this problem in the first place.