There Are No Children Here Essay, Research Paper

The West side of Chicago, Harlem, Watts, and about any major metropolis in the U.S. , What do all of these countries have in common? These countries, along with many others have become mine Fieldss for the explosive issues of race, values, and community duty, led by the predicament of the urban lower class. Issues such as violent offense, societal separation, public assistance dependance, drug wars, and unemployment all play a major function in the predicament of American inner-city life. Alex Kotlowitz & # 8217 ; s book ; ? THERE ARE NO CHILDREN HERE? , confronts America & # 8217 ; s devastated urban life ; a most painful issue in America.

Kotlowitz traces the lives of two black male childs ; 10-year-old Lafayette, and 7 twelvemonth old Pharaoh, as they struggle to crush the odds turning up in one of Chicago & # 8217 ; s worst lodging undertakings. Their household includes a public assistance dependent female parent, an alcoholic-drug utilizing male parent, an older sister, an older brother, and younger threes. Kotlowitz describes the horrors of an ill-maintained lodging undertaking wholly taken over by packs, where slayings and shots are an mundane thing. He succeeds at seting a face on the people trapped inside the lodging undertakings with virtually no hope of flight. One can truly experience a sense of great loss for the household, and a great trade of hope for the two immature male childs. You can truly experience yourself trusting that things will work out for them, and you can truly experience like you know these immature work forces on a personal footing.

All through their lives Pharaoh and Lafayette are surrounded by force and poorness. Their vicinity had no Bankss, no public libraries no film theatres, no skating rinks or bowling Alliess. Drug maltreatment was so rampant that the drug Godheads literally kept store in an derelict edifice in the undertakings, and shot was everyplace. Besides, there were no drug rehabilitation plans or centres to assist battle the job. Police feared traveling into the ghetto out of a fright for their ain safety. The book follows Pharaoh and Lafayette over a two twelvemonth period in which they struggle with school, effort to defy the enticement of packs, mourn the decease of close friends, and still happen the bravery to seek for a quiet interior peace, that most people take for granted. Kotlowitz portrays what life is like at the underside, and the small hope there is for the hapless which makes it virtually impossible for the immature lives in the ghetto to turn up. Besides at the same clip Kotlowitz wants the reader to cognize that non all hope is lost, but something must be done before hope is genuinely lost.

The female parent was portrayed as a adult female who lacked self-pride, and was non prepared to come in the occupation market. She had no accomplishments, and was wholly dependent on public assistance. She besides liked to chance, and sometimes really won. The biggest and most permeant job of the immature kids & # 8217 ; s lives was the laterality of the packs at Henry Horner Homes. The packs were dedicated to force, and kids were compelled to fall in for their ain safety. The packs in the Homes were of a & # 8220 ; retreatist & # 8221 ; kind, in that they focused chiefly on drugs, and their pack related activities, and would utilize whatever force necessary to maintain their activities afloat. Drugs were a portion of the male childs every twenty-four hours life, and barbarous drugs wars sur

rounded their flat. With the packs so near to place, the kids had a changeless fright of decease. The force ne’er let up. The kids lost many friends to either drugs or the packs. When they lost a friend, they felt sorrow for a piece, but world would put in, and they knew that it was an every twenty-four hours portion of their life. It was these feelings that made the Rivers kids hesitant to acquire close to anyone. If they did non acquire near, they would non experience the loss as much. It made them experience that there was no manner out, and decease was their dogged destiny. Their feelings of loss besides caused them to hold a enormous misgiving in the constabulary. In a manner they looked to the constabulary for counsel, but at the same clip did non swear them.

Residents of the places felt stuck in the center between the drug packs and the constabulary. The bulls came and went, but the pack members were at that place 24 hours a twenty-four hours. Few occupants would name 911 for fright that the packs would detect that they snitched. The older kids had gotten into problem with the constabulary, and the oldest male child had served clip. The oldest miss worked on and off as a cocotte when she needed the money. The household was about relieved when the oldest male child ; Terence was sentence to prison because he was profoundly involved with the packs, and prison would at least maintain him off the street, and hopefully salvage his life.

Kotlowitz wants people to cognize how annihilating life is in the ghetto. With that sentiment in head he quotes a presidential committee as stating ; ? The sheer graduated table of such undertakings & # 8230 ; is stultifying to the human spirit. Administration is heavy handed. The kid caught in such a societal environment is populating about in a concentration cantonment from which he has small opportunity of flight? ( p259 ) These hapless life conditions do non travel unnoticed, nevertheless small is done to better their conditions. A individual in authorization truly has to care to turn things about. Then when a individual of authorization eventually did attention, the money was non at that place to supply the services necessary. Vincent Lane was appointed the new president of the Chicago Housing Authority. He decided to repossess the edifices. With the aid of 60 Chicago police officers, functionaries went from edifice to edifice looking for drugs and arms. The job was that Lane was merely one individual, and could non alter the undertakings overnight, but he gave the people a ground to trust.

I could non even conceive of how difficult a life these people live. You can non assist but experience you want to assist the male childs out, and yet, non adequate people seem to care when there are so many others in the same place as Pharaoh and Lafayette. Yet all these adversities and obstruction we are left with the disruptive inquiry of what can we make that will work. Inevitably there is no individual reply but many little 1s to a immense job covering with America? s young person.

This book shows great significance in covering with the young person of America, how can you anticipate a child to turn to be an solid citizen when all he sees his full life is everything but an solid citizen. Even if his will and personality are strong plenty to acquire him by without a positive function theoretical account, so what resources do we supply for him in a topographic point filled with abandoned edifices and gunshot.

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