| | I'm still here in Philadelphia for another two days. It's been a really great trip catching up with my old college friends.
Today, we went to an inner city ministry called Urban Hope. One of the guys that I new back in my college days, a guy named Jason, works full time at Urban Hope and has since 2001. The ministry is located in the ghetto of ghettos. Walking down the streets of this section of Philadelphia (Kensington) made me feel like I was in a different world. The feel was very sad as people here are impoverished compared to other people who live just 15 minutes across the city.
Of course, the stereotypes are somewhat true. Most of the people in the Kensington neighborhood are Puerto Rican and the next highest percentage is African-American. The people who live across town...in more wealthy or middle class neighborhoods are predominantly white.
Why exactly are things this way? Millions of books have probably been written on the topic and I definitely can't do all of them justice. Racism seems like the obvious cause and no matter how conservatives might argue, it seems more than circumstantial that many minorities would live in poverty while whites enjoy the nicer neighborhoods.
Lack of education (or rather the quality of education) probably factors in substantially to the poverty. My friend Ryan was explaining how bad the public schools are in Philadelphia and especially in inner city Philadelphia. Of course, this is also fueled by racism to a degree that the ghettos are given the worst of schools and slim pickings when it comes to obtaining great teachers.
Poverty is a vicious cycle. An unforgiving cycle that thousands of families can't seem to break no matter who the politician is or what party they are from. (See the long list of big American cities who have had Democrats in power in the respective cities BUT people still live in the same poverty they did 40 years or more ago even though Democrats have been predominantly in control for most of those years).
And the cycle continues. When the only good jobs are selling drugs or women selling their bodies as a means for people to pay their rent or buy groceries, how are people going to break this cycle?
I'm no expert but what I saw today was really disturbing. |
| | Posted 9/11/2008 3:49 PM - 41 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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