POVERTY.

I am going to be speaking about the poverty in East St. Louis Illinois. We get to see that the city has no regular trash collection and very few jobs and nearly a third of its population live on welfare of some form. It’s also seen as the most distressed small town in America. The buildings in the city are unoccupied and there is literally garbage everywhere and the city is clouded by smoke from the chemical plants and this is turn has led to the highest rates of asthma in America. The city is also unable to buy heating fuel or toilet paper for the city hall and this means that it might just have to cut on the labor and even might go to the extent of selling the city hall and six fire stations so as to raise the money that they badly need. We also see that in Tunica people of the black community of sugar Ditch live in shacks by open sewers and this might be the cause of high liver tumors that the kids there have.  There is also the spillage of raw sewage which backs up into the homes of the residents in East Louis often and we see that once when there was a sewage spill in a playground it overflowed and some of the kids experienced hair loss as it went up to their houses and this also causes a risk of cholera and even hepatitis as it is a health hazard. The sewage problem is rampant since the pipes are collapsed and they cannot afford to repair them and this in turn causes flooded basements all over the city  and even if they repair the trucks they cannot afford to hire drivers to operate the machineries since most of them were laid off due to lack of money to pay them. Poverty is seen where when they go to the Griffin homes the kids he talks to do not know the time well are seem to be confused due to their environment and in this case their playground is filled with fecal matter due to a sewage that exploded and this is still evident as the area is marshy and has a foul smell this tells us of how bleak the future is since the kids are out future but the situations they are in make it so hard for them to prosper. Poverty is also shown when Smokey says her sister was raped and killed when the guys told her to go behind the school and they would give her a quarter this would not have happened if the kid was not poor and she only did that out of innocence and knowing it was not easy for a quarter to come by that easily. It is also poverty that makes the local people to accept 400 dollars when the plants have a leak that is termed toxic and this is enough to exchange so that the companies can be exempted from liability, this would not be the case if the people had money and knew their rights as they are only doing that because that is a lot of money that has just come easy to them and their health is not a priority since they have lived in the deplorable states all their lives. East St Louis has a lot of people living in the streets or sleeping in small isolated camps behind the burnt out buildings and some of these are even in the muddy stretches that were caused by the sewage bursts and this they do not out of choice but since they do not have any better option. The big corporations also build their own towns which they self-govern and are exempted from supervision by the health agencies and this they can do because there is no one living in these so called towns as they cannot afford to. We also see that the town has the most lottery shops and the biggest is located there and this is advertised in the black publications so that even with the little or nothing they have they can spend it since it’s a place that sells them dreams and eventually it is a total loss as it is basically selling hopes to people who have nothing. Poverty has led the people here to drink and the city is full of bars and liquor stores and ads for cigarettes also advertised in the black publications and this is because the people are frustrated and what better way to drown their sorrows rather than do it with alcohol with makes them forget their problems temporarily. Poverty has also led to the people selling out their houses for a bargain so that the companies can fend off suits that come up due to the chemical emissions and this they do without objection since the offers are appealing to them because of poverty and they also do not have faith with the court system. Poverty has also led to death of many kids since they grow weary of the sicknesses they get like tooth aches and this defeats their ambitions and most of them have bleeding gums and rotting teeth so much that the kids get used to this constant pain and it becomes part of their lives but there is nothing that they can do since dental care is delayed. The kids are also mal nutritioned and also not immunized as it should be and this is because of the deplorable state they live in with sewage pouring and the health officers feel uneasy to handle that and give them the necessary shots. The schools have also experienced these problems with sewage flowing in their kitchens and the students have to be sent home because the problem had even backed up toilets and spilled over to the food preparation areas and this leads to the school being called off in the whole district. The schools have very poor facilities but the students don’t have a choice and have to make do with whatever is available and this is because poverty rules out many avenues and you can only do the best you can. The schools are low in supply and there is no material to use in the classes and this had led to some teachers having to go the extra mile to provide their own personal stuff so as to get the classes going by like the teacher who says he has to bring his own VCR since the one in school has not been working for ages.  Poverty has led to the students feeling that there is no reason to be in school and so many of them end up pregnant or drop out of school and this is because a diploma from the ghetto school doesn’t feel like it counts for much in the outside world and this has lowered their self-esteem and made them feel like there is no way out of the whole mess. Poverty in the neighborhood has led to theft as we see the principal of East St Louis high being called and told his house has been robbed and he is not disturbed which is an indication that this might have happened before and so it does not come as a surprise. Poverty has led the kids to other vices like gangs since they feel like they need to belong to something as the society does not accept them for what they are this would be the best way to have a sense of belonging. This is also illustrated more when Shalika says how she went to a rich school and the kids wouldn’t play with her since she was the only black and from a poor background and this makes the kids feel like they are not wanted in the same society that they would like to so much fit in. This in turns makes them have to go to the schools in the poor neighborhood where the bathrooms are broken and do not work and they even do not have doors, the teachers are forced to share workbooks and that is regarded as the best school in the district. But poverty is to blame for the poor performances in schools since these kids have to endure growing up in burnt out houses, playing on contaminated land and walking past garbage everyday on their way to school and there is nothing they can do about it since even their parents went through the same process and it going to be a cycle all over again even though they would wish for a better life than that they are in.