May 22, 2007
Helping those who won't help themselves
The St. Petersburg Times is running a three part piece about a black journalist's experience teaching at Stillman College, a historically black college in Tuscaloosa, AL. So far parts one , "I Had a Dream" and two, "A Dream Lay Dying", have been published, with part three forthcoming. (Hat tip: MeFi)
Money quote from part two:
"My colleagues and I were witnessing the result of low admission standards. Were we expecting too much of young people who scored poorly on the SAT, who were rarely challenged to excel in high school, who were not motivated to take advantage of opportunities to learn, who could not imagine where a sound education could take them."
These students regularly set fire to their dorms, leading to a situation which leads to "a team of white firefighters trying to save a dormitory named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that black students had trashed."
The argument is that the poor are that way because they've received the short end of the stick and just haven't had the right opportunities. What is a society that has done its best to offer opportunities to those who had none to do when those who are the recipients of societal largesse burn down their own dorms?
Obviously, it's time to call DJ Goodnews...
Posted by: jCave at May 22, 2007 11:45 AM"The argument is that the poor are that way because they've received the short end of the stick and just haven't had the right opportunities".
I'm assuming you don't agree with this argument. In your opinion, why are the poor "that way"?
Nothing behind my question except curiosity; I don't have any answers.
When you figure out the answer to that, there are a lot of people who want to know.
My take: while it's true that the deck is stacked, it's stacked in terms of both nature and nurture. People who are inherently more likely to do well--high natural intelligence, good looks--are also accidentally likely to be in environments that encourage success, i.e. affluent areas. People who are inherently likely to do poorly--no impulse control, health problems--are accidentally likely to be in environments that encourage failure, e.g. underclass urban areas. These things run in families.
Posted by: ryan at May 22, 2007 8:29 PMIt's difficult for me to know where to start with how much I categorically disagree with the spirit of the last comment about nature/nurture.
I very strongly believe that people born into poor urban areas have deck stacked almost insurmountably against them.
I'm curious about how much time you've spent in those areas, and how much time you've spent interacting with those folks. Those who know me know that I'm the farthest thing from a "bleeding-heart-liberal," but in this situation, I have say that I feel like you can't get what an imopssible situation these kids face, until you see it first hand.
Posted by: isaac at May 25, 2007 4:05 PMI do have some appreciation for the situation here, though clearly I haven't spent ten years working with DCF.
I think perhaps you misunderstood my comment. I'm not trying to say that the deck isn't stacked. Quite the opposite in fact. But the article I linked raises some good points about taking people who have grown up in underprivileged areas, giving them the opportunity to make choices that will get them out of those areas, and watching them make decisions that will keep them there, e.g. burning their own dorms.
Yes, they've got it rough. No question about that. And I'm making no comment on whether society has any kind of obligation to try and equalize things. That's a different discussion entirely. My point here is that fiat cannot make things equal: giving people money doesn't make them not poor. Giving people an opportunity to be educated does not educate them.
It strikes me that Calvinist soteriology only works with God. The state cannot pick people to save and effectively save them; they have to cooperate.
Posted by: ryan at May 25, 2007 4:23 PMThat being said, poverty unequivocally does run in families. I'm not saying why it does this, but anyone who has spent any time in social services will tell you that most of the people they deal with are the children and grandchildren of previous--or current--clients. I know people who have worked for DCF that have had three generations of a single family as clients: the grandmother gave birth at sixteen, as did her daughter. If things keep going the way they are, the grandmother will be a great-grandmother by the age of 50.
There's a discussion to be had about why this is true, but it there's no question that it is true.
Posted by: ryan at May 25, 2007 4:27 PMI have spent a fairly large amount of my life in poor urban areas, as well as poor international areas.
I think you are generally right about the nature/nurture mix. I tend to think it has more to do with nurture in a very broad sense.
The biggest difference I have seen between the "poor" and the "not poor" is their perspective on future events and their perceived ability to control them.
I was brought up to believe that my own future is mostly something that I control and construct through various choices. This belief drives me to educate myself, pay down my debt, save for retirement, etc.
I have not seen this prevailing belief or teaching among the "poor" in the way I see it in my own class. It may be that a belief that the future cannot be controlled is entirely rational. A lack of familial wealth leaves the poor less protected from unexpected events, and government subsidies can be quite random and reward unplanned behavior.
So it could be that "opportunities" to succeed are not even seen as such because of an entirely different perspective of the future.