Poverty and Hope

There are so many things that have erupted related to Trayvon Martin, Stand Your Ground, race in American, and reducing gun violence.   There continues to be a deep divide about race and the role it does play in our country, as well as the role that it should play.  It seems that those who least want to talk about it also have the least to say about what to do about it.  What can be said that is so uncontroversial that everyone will participate?  That is very hard to gauge, and the fact that the POTUS is African-American has paradoxically polarized the discussion.  No one wants to admit that race is an issue in our country and politicians who are most vocally opposed seem to be those who also oppose immigration reform, a minimum wage that a person can live on, healthcare reform so that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare, support for education, and other things that to me seem very important in lifting our country back to the world class standing that we had during WWII.

 So if we can't talk about race, can we talk about poverty?  One thing that is inextricably associated with violence in general and gun violence in particular is poverty.  If you are poor you are more likely to be robbed, to be assaulted, and to be killed.  So, what are the chances that if you are born poor that you can raise yourself out of poverty?  The answer varies by where you live.  The problem with all these maps is that the bad news is clustered in all the same places.  The places where there is more poverty is where you are likely to be born into poverty and die in poverty.  If we must be a country where we use guns to shoot not just drug dealers and armed robbers, but school children, Congressmen, and unarmed black teens who we perceive as threatening, could we at least revisit the War on Poverty?