When will it stop?  

              Reading the book There Are No Children Here really opens your eyes to issues that are still happening here, in the United States, today. In the book we saw how a mid-sized family was affected by everyday violence, never ending poverty, inhumane living conditions and continuous acts of crime. The title of the book is powerful as it speaks for itself on an issue that affects millions of children and families around our country today.

            Poverty leads to violence. Violence leads to death. During the presentation someone asked, “Where are the programs that are suppose to help people who are living in conditions like these”? That was a very good question, unfortunately to that question we had a very unfortunate answer: Funding is simply becoming non-existent. There is no funding for those type of programs. A lot of the time those programs are the first to go in cities where the budget is tight. Where is the aid to help support families in need, families that didn’t choose for their life to be this way?

 As we read in the book, Pharaoh and Lafayette’s mother had been raised in the Horner Homes as well but her living situation, childhood experiences, and memories had been quite different. The Horner Homes slowly began to deteriorate. The children played a very important role in the book; they up more than half of the population at the Horner Homes. The children were overpopulated but underrepresented as they had no support from the local or state government in order to be able to live a healthy lifestyle. That is sad, as they witnessed things many of us will never experience and with those tragic experiences come consequences. As we read in the book, Pharoah had a stuttering problem; many children today are diagnosed with mental issues due to their past experiences with crime and violence. In Pharaoh’s and Lafayette’s situation there wasn’t much they could do, they were young and were simply trying to make it through. When there is no ambition or motivation to succeed in the community in which you live, not much can be done. What saddens me is that we are a country that has cutting edge technology, that has always been there for other countries in times of need, but, surprisingly, we can’t seem to do more for those in need.  

I found an article where it talked about a shooting that happened here in Chicago. Below I have summarized some of the article, it is a good read as it puts all of these violence issues into perspective. This ties into the book as well as the lives of the children consisted of constant fear of being shot. There were also thousands of innocent lives that were lost and innocent children petrified by these violent acts.

When will it stop?

The three officers involved in Mr. Cross’s shooting were cleared of wrongdoing in Mr. Cross’s death, and returned to duty. The city of Chicago this year paid Mr. Cross’s family $2 million after relatives filed a wrongful-death suit. “One officer reloaded and another one shot at him with two different guns,” Dana Cross said of her son’s shooting, which she heard from inside her house. “I want to know why those officers are still working (Davey 2015).

                                             Mr. Cross, 19, was killed in 2011.

 Related Articles:

Davey, Monica, and Timothy Williams. "Chicago Pays Millions but Punishes Few in Killings by Police."The New York Times. The New York Times, 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/us/chicago-pays-millions-but-punishes-few-in-police-killings.html

Kirp, David L. "What Do the Poor Need? Try Asking Them." The New York Times. The New York Times, 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/david-l-kirp-what-do-the-poor-need-try-asking-them.html