You Can Take People Out Of The Country, But... People use the phrase "S/he's so...Ghetto" as a put-down, but might they only be observing what used to be called "Country" ways in the city?
Generational Family Poverty often hands down dysfunctional traditions and mores, as we examine how three generations are caught in Cyclic Poverty and threaten to become a permanent Underclass, pushed down and kept down by millions of incoming Mexicans and Central Americans, as seen in the Gulf Restoration projects...
Part 2: History Of The Culture Of Poverty You Can Take People Out Of The Country, But...
Lack of Urban, Communal Living Tradition Locked in Negative Habitry; Brought Negative Changes for Many Urban Areas
Part I: “Slavery-isms” Persist to the Present Part III: Country Cousins Making Hell-holes of Urban Areas Part IV: African-isms Live On in Culture of Poverty
By Kevin J. Walker
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Video Reviews On GeoCities Dot Com [These chapters are excerpted from the forthcoming book "The Culture of Poverty" which looks at the impact on the cyclic family poverty affecting Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin which gave the country its model for sweeping welfare reform through its then Governor Tommy Thompson]. The problem of cyclic, seemingly unending, almost hereditary poverty has become so vexing that new approaches are being desperately tried, and new philosophies openly discussed that once seemed like heresy. Among them is the idea that far from "blaming the victim," those in a culture of poverty that has supported their dysfunctional thinking and lifestyles need to change their ways, or else. The "Or Else" is what happened in 1996. To break up the system of generational familial poverty, President Clinton under pressure during an election year and facing disabling demographics for the 21st century, signed into law sweeping welfare reform. Among the Draconian provisions were no more extra payments for extra babies born on welfare; no work means no check; and a lifetime cap on public benefits after five years, called "5 years And Out." Critics, the usual Enablers predicted societal doom, massive homelessness in our urban areas, childhood deaths from starvation and abuse, and societal strife as these barely able poverty stricken (as if poverty was something that people were struck down by) could not be expected to survive. It has been a near resounding success, with welfare rolls down by as much as 65 percent from those who always could work but were never pressed to under the old system. Home sales are inching upward in part because those formerly poor are finally coming into the Middle Class, something the Poverticians and Poverty Pimps were unable or unwilling to do after generations of programs and agitation and trillions of dollars. They are transitioning through stages, which for many is Working Poor, surveys and interviews show them to like this reality better than the treadmill of cyclic poverty they were stuck on before. They'll get by. DISMANTLING THE ENGINES OF POVERTY But there are still some who won't be impacted any time soon by these positive changes. Their mindset is set, and it may take a standard generation for their kind to be weeded out so American society can finally eliminate the 15 percent of the population that lives in poverty. The outlook they have stresses living for the moment, a disdain for education; an over reliance on emotional response to situations by males who were outside of the nuclear family home model and thus reared by younger, uneducated single mothers who themselves were from a non-Nuclear Family household. Often these teen Never Wed mothers were much nearer their firstborn children's age than is the Middle Class norm -- fifteen years or less instead of the greater than 20 years, or a Standard Generation of approximately 23.5 years before a person reproduces themselves through their children. So now here we are at the cusp of the new Millennium, with a large portion of people who have been told to Work, Or Else. The history and origins have been detailed, but what is going to happen next? How has the Culture of Poverty harmed our cities? And what and who are the Special Interests and mechanisms, many of them of African and Latino descent who are going to fight to ensure that poor African Americans will never rise, and even look like them? We dealt already with simple external and easily observed traits of those in multi-generational poverty like diet, clothes styles, and language. The hard times of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the beginning of welfare during the following Roosevelt years took a large segment of African Americans out of the Middle Class for generations under this one-two punch, combined with massive Immigration which has never bode well for Black people. The establishment of a Culture of Poverty creates populations with identifiable negative traits, but it does no good to point out their characteristics without explaining the history and mechanisms that created them. Looking at who their heroes were and those who embodied their belief system then as now tells us much about their mindset. SAGA OF STAG-O-LEE: JIM CROW ERA ANTI-HERO & ALPHA MALE SEXUAL POWER ICON Stag-O-Lee, also called Stagger Lee was the original Bigger Thomas, the archetype of the unteachable, unreachable Black Man who cares little for the mores, laws or customs of White society. He is unassimilatible. His is a saga of who is a transmuted form of Don Juan, even complete with a similar sojourn to Hell in which he takes over, making his punk out of the Devil himself as he becomes supreme ruler of the Underworld in a series of stories that are unlikely to make it into the chronicles of those such as Joseph Campbell. There are various versions of the Stagolee saga, in fact there was a Blues song by the same name, as well as one performer who called himself "the Devil's Son-In-Law." The Boasts and Toasts, part of a long Oral Tradition as many things were transported from Africa, contains the story which has regional and temporal changes as it winded its way around the country and into modern urban areas as part of the post- Civil and World Wars Diaspora. Stagolee is the strong Black man who answers to no law but his own internal calling; he's a Ladies Man but beholden to none; and all women --but White women in particular-- are helpless before his sexual magnetism. He is as prone to kill a rude White man as look at him. He breaks all the rules of law and society, but never pays a price, or for very long, and often turns the tables on his captors. After Emancipation there were many former Southerners who made their way to the Territories and the Western states to make their fortune as Freed People. Their encounters with the authorities made their way into various stories, and even some movies such as the Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte 1970s actioner "Buck and the Preacher," and the antics of a Western Bonnie and Clyde Black couple called "Thomasine and Bushrod." Their stories are also reflected in the travails of the traveling rootless Stagolee. He was the archetypical Anti Hero, outlaw, and overall "bad man" as seen by The System. Stagolee, (sometimes erroneously refined into "Stagger Lee" much like stores mis-label Chit'lins as "Chitterlings)." He was sometimes depicted with wide-brimmed western-style hat, vest, two-guns, a guitar, and a hand-rolled cheroot, like the Man With No Name played in the Spaghetti Westerns of Clint Eastwood. THE TRIAL IN 'BUCKET OF BLOOD' One of the many stories has the roving Stagolee facing trial in the Western frontier town called Bucket O' Blood. He's being unfairly oppressed by the legal system and a crooked Sheriff who dogged him ever since he first rode into town. They finally get him into court for the trumped up charge of having sexual relations with a White woman, for which the fine is ten dollars. Called to testify as an eyewitness to the illegal congress in one version is a Chinese Coolie who works in the hotel, and in the oral telling (cleaned up for presentation here) there is an exaggerated stereotypical bad English with an Asiatic accent. Asked to describe what he saw when he opened their bedroom door without knocking, the Coolie states: "I seen ten toes up, and ten toes down
And him big Brack booty goin' roun' an' roun'!
I say it before and I say it again,
-- That if that ain't [CENSORED]
Then you can fine me ten!!" Stagolee, reminiscent of a modern day Bigger Thomas by Richard Wright and Ving Rhames two-gun totin' WWI veteran in "Rosewood," or in the case of the Atlanta jail breaker and hostage taker, grabs a pistol from one of his jailors and shoots his way out of the courtroom, killing the judge as well as the crooked, racist Sheriff with one shot each, right between the eyes; as well as a bailiff or two for good measure before he casually makes his exit before the packed and stunned courtroom: "He put on his hat
and strode to the door
But before leaving he tipped his hat
to the ladies once more." In an era when there were several lynchings of African American men each week Stagolee was an appealing figure into which the downtrodden could pour their frustrations and even aspirations. SOUTHERN HERITAGE CREATED, NOURISHED IN NORTH Northern cities saw a phenomenon following the Great Migration after World War II out of the South for which the following section applies. For the South and Southeast the migration often was from the rural areas to the cities, and sometimes then to other northern states. No matter, the examples still hold for the rural to the urban environs. "Country" ways have long been remarked upon and made a topic of humour and derision. But there are good reasons for their ways, but when transported from the agricultural areas to the compact and populated cities these ways caused friction and prevented assimilation. When combined with the Culture of Poverty in which many of the émigrés found themselves these ways not only became markers for them but prevented their elevation into the ranks of the Middle Class, home-owning and educated, upwardly mobile population. Country To City An Uneasy Fit For Post WWII Generation The loud music and "Loud Talking" is because of their rural heritage. Loud talking is a country holdover because coming from a farming environment, in their work outdoors they had to make themselves heard over far distances. In cities close in it is now out of place and such "loud talking" indoors is frowned upon. The front lawns of their homes are bereft of grass because of their Southern ways as well. Grass is allowed to be stomped out of existence from the children playing in front of the house because in the rural South, this is how they kept poisonous snakes from getting too close and under the homes, (often supported on stands because of the high, wet water tables they don't have basements) so the serpents wouldn't get into the house. They just keep on doing it by habit even though the original reasons are lost. There is also a disdain for Nature; a reaction to the hated rural profusion of flora and a liking for the sterile city, including plastic coverings on furniture. This is among reasons why some inner city homes have the front lawns pulled up and cemented over - sometimes even painted green! Even large stately trees are cut down though they don't threaten the house and it detracts thousands from the resale value of the property as well as causing higher energy use by overheating by the sun in the summer. YOU CAN TAKE PEOPLE OUT OF THE COUNTRY, BUT... Hanging wash on fences like they were still out in the countryside --even on busy streets with bus lines-- is another characteristic that was passed along, like Southern accents and speech patterns for those who may never have visited the South for much longer than a family reunion, but everyone around them still retains the long ago and far away speech patterns so they talk the same. Southern California native and rapper/actor Snoop Dog, or Calvin Broadus, is indicative of such. The establishment of a Culture of Poverty in cities are harming them, maybe irretrievably, making productive citizens fearful and pushing them either further and further outward, or forcing them to finally reach the decision to leave the area entirely. Understanding this self-perpetuating dysfunctional culture is key to finally removing decades long barriers to upward mobility and better cities for all concerned. By way of example, Milwaukee's African American population is growing in large part because of émigrés from adjoining and nearby states such as Illinois, Michigan and Indiana which abandoned or altered aspects their welfare programs such as grownup healthy male-oriented General Assistance in an effort to drive out their low-class denizens. Those and other places sent thousands streaming into the city as quick as Greyhound buses could whisk them from Chicago, Gary, Indiana; Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas. But historically the roots of our present problem stem from events a half-century ago. The largest block of those who became the Culture of Poverty in Milwaukee came from the South in the post WWII "boom" years of the 1940s and '50s during a time when Southern oppression such as trooper/sheriff/police harassment and restrictive laws started to pick up in reaction to the growing Civil Rights Movement. Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi residents formed the largest bloc of African émigrés to Milwaukee. In fact, it was said that there were streets along which everybody who was an adult in the neighborhood came from one particular county in Mississippi, and some apartment buildings in which everyone came from the same county, so quickly did Milwaukee fill up as they fled to the Northern cities. There is now a reverse migration from Rustbelt Zone cities like Milwaukee as talented Middle Class people flee back to the welcoming ancestral arms of the South, while taking their property tax money, children, and skills with them. Films like "Sugar Hill" with Wesley Snipes, and "Down In The Delta" with Snipes as actor/producer and ABC TV's newest "Desperate Housewife" Alfre Woodard were inspired by this new Exodus. Left behind are the decaying cores of the Central Cities increasingly populated by those who believe the world owes them the comfortable living enjoyed by people who work; the nuclear family is an "Ozzie & Harriet" TV sitcom fantasy with no relevance to them; pursuing academic excellence and/or using proper English is "acting White;" and out-of-wedlock birthrates of over 80 percent is the norm. The new Milwaukeeans came up from the South, but because they came in so quickly they never really became acculturated properly into a Midwest Middle Class existence and its work ethic. Straight from the farm, they were rooted still in the Agricultural Age of farming instead of the Industrial Age which has long since passed them by as we have transited to the Information Age. NO PLACE FOR THEM IN THE INFORMATION AGE This is a large part of the reason Wisconsin Works or W-2 which served as the model for the national welfare reform are having such a hard time trying to place these Culture of Poverty victims in private roles work, since under the welfare reforms all must now work for their government checks. Some of their fathers and uncles benefited from the plentiful factory jobs in the more heavily industrialized North. But the next generations after the migrations and with the transition to a Service and Information based economy were trapped in multi-generational poverty after failing to build upon the success of the previous ones. To be sure they had lots of help from the inferior educational system of the public schools. But traditions were established whereby AFDC, food stamps, sporadic dead-end work, public housing projects and rent assistance, crime victimization and single parenthood came to categorize their reality and world view. Now, they are lost in the Information Age, in a Service Economy for which they are ill-equipped. The school system, like other institutions, is reeling under the strain of trying to deal with them. The new city inhabitants such as Black Milwaukeeans came up from the South, but because they came in so quickly they never really became acculturated properly into an urban middle class Midwest existence and its work ethic. Straight from the farm, they were rooted still in the Agricultural Age of farming instead of the Industrial Age which has long since passed them. Their offspring two generations later are similarly affected as the Brave New World has passed them by as we have transited to the Information Age of handheld computers, high speed and wireless broadband data connections and the Internet. Instead of being able to uplift the next generation as has been the national practice where the first generation is Blue Collar and their children through education or working for decades are lifted into another income level, and their own children are solidly Middle Class this population has actually regressed. They are worse off than they were before in a previous generation, which is unprecedented in America outside of the Great Depression. Even then the rate of home ownership by the second generation of Post-Enslavement Blacks was higher than it is now, as was family formation in the first generation after Emancipation. NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER: You can take people out of the country, but... Country Cousins made/making hellholes of our cities trapping many in poverty's grip. [These chapters are excerpted from the forthcoming book "The Culture of Poverty" which looks at the impact on the cyclic family poverty affecting Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin which gave the country its model for sweeping welfare reform through its then Governor Tommy Thompson]. To respond with your opinions about these articles, please contact:
Kevin J. Walker, Netitor
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Our Partner:Kevin Walker
Mr. Walker is a print journalist who often includes Science and Travel articles among his forays on political and societal observations. A past professor of Journalism at his Alma Mater of Marquette University, Walker has written extensively for several newspapers on urban issues, and is presently compiling his essays on the phenomenon of intractable trans-generational familial poverty into the book in progress "The Culture of Poverty," based on his observations on the effects of Welfare Reform in his hometown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He often writes from an Undisclosed Location in the Hidden Valleys retreat inland from the Mississippi River in western Wisconsin, where he indulges in his first intellectual love, amateur Astronomy and stargazing.
Milwaukee, WI, 53202
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