The Ghetto as an "Eye Opener"

After seeing a first hand account of the experiences of the ghetto I ca say there definitely is a cycle of poverty and it is never ending. The mother in the film has 5 or 6 children that she needs to take care of but she has no way to bring any decent source of money other than welfare. At first I thought what any one else would also think and that was “why not get a job?” but then the mother revealed that she had no finished high school and nobody in her family had either. Due to having kids in high school this ruined her mom’s chances of finishing any type of education. When I watched her mom walk around the job faire and struggle to find a job due to her lack of education and resources I then understood how important education is these days. Because of the fact that she had no education she not only struggled but her entire family struggled as well. The daughter was embarrassed that she lives on welfare and her mom couldn’t find a job. One sign of hope the family had was the daughter doing well in school and having a mentor that guided her out of the ghetto. It is quite obvious that many or most of the people in the ghetto aren’t so lucky to have a mentor because they lack the resources and this is part of social isolation where they lack social connections to mainstream institutions. The daughter provides hope to her family and the mom thought of her as a beacon of positive hope for the rest of her family including her brothers and sisters. When the mother is on welfare and is working a part time job it is hard to see welfare taken away from her because she makes so little as it is and it was during Christmas time. It is people like this who are truly screwed in society because no matter what they do to get ahead they end up right back on welfare. No matter what they do or how hard they try they will forever be stuck in the underclass and perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

Also in the film a brother of the narrator is shot and killed on the street just outside of their home and just a few hours after and interview is done in their home. This shows the extreme, constant, violent nature of the ghetto. This violence emerges because people are so desperate for money, food, housing, and a way out of the ghetto. The young boy who showed promise in the world was gunned down without any chance so who knows what good he could have done for the community as he was supposedly a great student and on his way to becoming a community leader. Types of situations like this are heart breaking to me as some good may have come out of the underclass to help or improve conditions and the ghetto jus swallows it up. As the daughter gets into college the mom is proud and notes that nobody she knows even has finish high school and this shocks me as everyone I know at the very least has finished high school and the highest education in my family being my step dad who has his master’s. It just shows an compares the two worlds that we come from and how very different people’s lives can be. One’s life born into crime, drugs, joblessness and the other into education, an abundance of resources, and social connectedness. Something must be done to combat these extreme conditions. I can’t imagine that very few people make it to college like the girl in the film that are from the ghetto. Most I assumed get sucked into the life of crime, joblessness and doing anything it takes to stay alive. I thought about how the mother had kids in high school and thought “why one would have kids so young in a crucial stage of your life?” but then I remembered this is the culture of the ghetto that the underclass lives in. They don’t shun having kids so young like upper classes do but instead almost welcome it and consider it a sign of manhood or womanhood. The way I see it, these people of the underclass are almost living in separate countries compared to some of the rest of the people in this country. The ghetto problems need to be taken care of in one way or another. There is a constant cycle of violence, joblessness and segregation that in my belief requires some type of intervention to cure. Only to witness or experience the destruction and devastation of the ghetto will be the only way to understand it.