Many of the local residents were there illegally, so INS intimidated the residents, giving the police a sense of safety. It was a town without pity whose middle name was sorrow. But that is where I lived. There were laws designed to protect human dignity against the kind of oppression that occurred daily. And remember, it wasn t just at the Canal, it was happening all over the country.
Poverty robs people of their dignity and self-esteem.
We learn to adapt and live within our situation because to do otherwise just isn t productive. In this process of surviving poverty however, we also learn to expect less than what we deserve as humans. It is a brutal, degrading process. And, it is utterly unnecessary in the 21st Century. No, the problem I have is that there are homeless and poverty struck people living in the same zip code as Bill Gates.