From: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 17:24:41 GMT

In article <9204131555.AA18277@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
>
>>>  These social wounds are self-inflicted!  It's hard enough being poor
>>
>>Keep telling yourself that. It must make you sleep better at night.
> 
>  Sorry, but I just don't see how the choice to do intravenous
>  drugs or for teenagers to have babies cannot be considered 
>  a self-inflicted wound.   In what way are people who choose
>  such things not making their lives *more* wretched?  Homicide
>  is the leading cause of death of young black males in the US
>  (except in some communities where it's AIDS), 25% of all 
>  young black men in the US are in jail or on parole and the
>  US has a higher percentage of its black population in 
>  prison than South Africa.

It seems to me to be worth asking WHY poor people do such things.

>  But many of our problems *are* more true of the poor.  Again, I
>  cite the 15% rate of crack babies in at BCH.  Or the HUGE rate 
>  of AIDS among poor.   I mean, I suppose one could argue that 
>  the unwanted teenage pregnancy rate is just as high in Wellesley
>  (affluent community in Mass.) as Roxbury (poor coommunity 12 miles
>  east of Wellesley) but the rich Wellesley girls are just having
>  lots of abortions, but this would be highly speculative and 
>  you can't abort or easily hide a case of AIDS.   

Of considerable interest here is the following observation from
Rochester, NY and the surrounding suburbs in Monroe county:

A teenager in the Brighton (upper-middle-class professional suburban)
school system is twice as likely to have tried drugs, and nearly twice
as likely to have become addicted, than a teenager in the Rochester
(65% poor, mostly black and Hispanic) district.  On the other hand,
the Brighton teenager is virtually certain to receive appropriate
medical treatment once his teachers and parents recognize the problem;
not so the city kid.

I suspect that a similar case could easily be made w.r.t. pregnancies
and abortions, as there are presently NO clinics performing abortions
for the indigent in Rochester.  They must go to Buffalo, 60 miles away.

It is hard to hide AIDS, but a kid in a wealthy district is more likely
to have a supply of clean needles, and is less likely to have sex with
prostitutes, than a poor kid in a city.

>>   And with an infant mortality rate in the
>>range of Bangladesh, it is not at all clear that people in Harlem are
>>much better off than people in other nations. 
>
>  I agree.  In fact the male lifespan in Harlem is currently **less** 
>  than the male fifespan in Bangladesh.   But look at why:  in 
>  Bangladesh it's wretched poverty, poor sanitary conditions,
>  and frequent massive floods -- not things they have much
>  control over. They do have a high birth-rate but they're 
>  also illiterate and come from an agrarian culture emphasizing 
>  big families and its hard to break old cultural habits. 
>  Compare this to Harlem:  Homicide and AIDS are the two
>  biggest cause of death -- these result from *behaviors*,
>  *choices*.   And the rate of unwed births in the black 
>  community in 1950 was about the same as whites.  Today 
>  it's 60% overall and in the large city ghettoes its 80%.

Yes, but why?  Do you have a reasonable explanation for the change?
The culture of black people in the city has not changed so much since
1950, and (see William Julius Williams for this) is more self-help- and
work-oriented than white culture.

...

>  Jobs are good.  Jobs are important.  Jobs are scarce.  But 
>  how does it follow that because one is out of work one should 
>  feel compelled to shoot someone, stick a needle in one's 
>  arm, or have a baby?   You can't argue that it's an 
>  emotional escape from the wretchedness of poverty since
>  the poor in other places are just as wretched, if not more
>  so, but don't make these choices to the same extent.  

Drug use follows from the resources (stealable) to buy drugs.  Violence
follows from several factors: drugs, availability of weapons, and the
weight of perceived inequality.  Pregnancy follows from something much
simpler and more direct: better nutrition resulting in a reduced age at
menarche.  American girls, including most of the poor ones, now become
fertile around age 13 or 14.  The children of most third world countries
don't until about 17 or 18, when they are considered marriageable.
-- 
Mark A. Fulk				Computer Science Department
fulk@cs.rochester.edu			University of Rochester
Omit needless words -- Strunk		Rochester, NY  14627