Is this America?

I talk a lot about my Appalachian culture. And often I blame my quirks on it, I suppose that's easier than blaming myself. I carry much of that culture with me every day and often find myself explaining it to outsiders. But for the most part the Appalachian culture is a kind of a sub-culture of Southern culture which is a sub-culture of American culture, etc. However, there is an American culture I am almost completely ignorant of: Urban culture.

Which is why I enrolled in Urban and Metro Politics this semester actually it's a requirement. Nonetheless I've already learned a great deal. Over Christmas break I read Hold Love Strong, a fictional novel about life in the projects in NYC. I believe I briefly discussed it before. Heartbreaking to say the least but tied up in a decently respectable bow. The worst parts of it I tried to chalk up to "good story telling" because it is, after all, fiction. It was a great look at poverty in inner cities. Although I'm not unfamiliar with poverty, this is a different type than what we are exposed to in Central Appalachia.

My first reading assignment for Urban and Metro was Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago. A very similar story with one key difference: this is non-fiction. You are following 2 boys and looking at the world from their POV. I read it in one night, about 3 hours. The reality is haunting and the second story told unreal.

We had our first discussion on this book on Monday and I'm headed to the second one in about an hour. This book was written in the '90's but before you make yourself feel better thinking it isn't that bad anymore let me throw a few statistics your way:

• In January of this year, 4 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and 34 murders took place in Chicago. 
• More people have been murdered in Chicago in the last 4 years, than have American troops in the war on Terror since 2001. 

While I have been acutely aware of how screwed up the media is on reporting news, shouldn't someone somewhere be talking about this? Our President? Congress? Any news station, anywhere? I did hear on NPR at the beginning of the year that the number of murders in Chicago rose above 500 for 2012, the first time in a couple of years. So it isn't getting better friends. I wish I had a solution but I do not.

Poverty is a strange thing. It is hereditary, it creates sub cultures, it is misunderstood and most of all it's running rampant. The cry for help of Lloyd and LeAlan as you follow them through the streets of Chicago goes something like this:

"In Vietnam, them people came back crazy. I live in Vietnam, so what you think I'm gonna be if I live in it and they just went and visited?"

I think the author of this story thought this book would shake our country but I'm sad to say I'd never heard of it until this class. I also read something recently about East St. Louis though I can't for the life of me remember where. Similar story, unreal that the problems facing that city are plaguing our country.

Poverty in Chicago is different than rural poverty both the causes and the outcomes. But the fact remains that it exists and it is misunderstood are true in both situations. There is no easy solution and it's not a "pull yourelf up by your bootstraps" kind of problem. It goes deeper than that.

How can we even begin to compare the America we live in to the America where kids who have any extra money take the city bus to the end of the line just to get out of the projects and feel safe for a while?