Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it.

I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it, and herein lies the problem. The people who often try to erase social injustices are those who have lived a life of privilege and have absolutely no idea what it's like on the other side. A lot of them rely on second or third hand sources, but they often fail to get the gist of things. This isn't something wrong on it's own, but whenever people are frustrated they tend to grope for explanations and a lot of people fail to give this any thought whatsoever.

Even though this article seems to be well intentioned, but stuff like this hurts people in the longer run. Take a look at this;

>>>It is not simply a case of teenage girls from deprived backgrounds accidentally becoming pregnant. Evidence from many sources suggests that teen pregnancy rates are similar in poor and affluent communities. However, motherhood is a choice, as both Geronimus and Johns are keen to point out. Teenage girls from affluent backgrounds are more likely to have abortions than their less-privileged peers. In terms of reproduction, the more affluent girls are best off concentrating on their own career and development so that they can invest more in the children they have at a later stage. "It seems that girls are assessing their life chances on a number of fronts and making conscious decisions about reproduction," says Johns.The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. Even if there are clinics that perform this for an extremely low cost. Most people lack access and awareness in the ghetto, which is just another side effect of growing up there. Affluent children can think about their life choices because they have the luxury of doing so. Most children from the ghetto don't.

The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the writer. I am not an expert on it, but Richard Dawkins surely is and he takes the pains to point out that genes are like a coder who writes a complex AI program. After her/his job is finished the program is on its own. If you think about it everything comes down to genetic impulses and the environment plays a crucial role in determining those impulses, but in humans another paradigm also comes into the equation; the ability for us to make a conscious choice.

What I am trying to say is that the expert who wrote that paper is trying to get an extremely valuable point across, but the way it is used to explain everything is demeaning and flawed. There is no magic bullet for such problems, and you really need not resort to such things. Good ole' hard work with dedication and understanding ought to do.

[edit: I forgot to add "flawed understanding by the writer" the expert who has been quoted is spot on, but the general conclusions derived seem to be pretty shabby.]

The article seems to confirm the idea that we can't improve the life of the underclass, we can only shrink the underclass by moving people out of it. Unfortunately, not many people who are magically plucked out of their culture and society (via scholarships or employment) can bear to alienate themselves from their roots forever, so that isn't a solution, either. Even if we consistently skim off the exceptional individuals who are capable of handling that kind of dislocation, the underclass will sustain itself.

Personally, I think the solution is to provide a minimum guaranteed standard of living, no questions asked, no silly ragged patchwork quilt of programs, just a minimum standard of living. Not enough to remove the stigma of poverty -- we don't want people to be comfortable or satisfied on the dole -- just enough to make it worthwhile for people to invest in themselves and avoid anti-social behavior.

What we will then discover is whether an absolute level economic subsistence can transform behavior, or whether it is the stigma of relative poverty that causes people to behave antisocially.

While I do respect your larger point...

The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions.

A lot of the research in that article was done in the UK, where cost is not really a factor. Abortions are covered by the national heath service. Also, there are no parental notification rules or any similar barriers that make it so hard in the US.

Contraception is also free, and so I don't think it is completely unreasonable to speculate that many of these births are actually wanted and to examine the reasons for them, as the researchers are attempting in the OP. Whether their theory is actually correct, I don't know.

My mother works in the health ministry and I read some of her files one day. They had the same problem even though they were giving out services and contraception for free social stigma, lack of awareness and access resulted in people turning away from such resources.

I am not saying that the births are not wanted either. What I am trying to say is that as a result of the environment such children are in they are taught that this is life and there is nothing more they can expect. This doesn't happen explicitly but implicitly through the actions of others.

I really can't explain this. I think that the OP is right and they are well intentioned, but they are making the same mistake over and over again. There is no magic bullet over here.

Of course, you should try to find ways to increase your ability to make change, but there really is not magic bullet.

63% of all adult Americans are overweight or obese, graduate students included. In poor areas it is hard to swap bad calories for good, because there is no place to get good food cheaply. I don't know about Jersey City, but in Queens there are plenty of "ghetto" Indian people (for lack of a better phrase.)