Last term in Soc 205 Jim had us read a book that gave me a revelation on the situation that low income youth face in life.

The book is called "Ain't no Makin' It" and I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it. If you are the type of person that thinks poor people are lazy, or have ways of life that keep them poor you NEED to read this book (along with every politician in our country).

This book helped me to understand that trying hard to survive in life gets a whole lot of people in this country absolutely nowhere... if not worse internally. This probably makes no sense, but that is exactly why you need to read the book.

This chapter in Ferguson reminded me of that book because the issue for many impoverished in large cities is not the people, but their environment and resources that are available.

Our nation continues to cater to upper class individuals and this catering includes moving where they are moving. The numbers of factory jobs that shut down in that area of Chicago astounded me. Each person represents a family that was sustained by those jobs. By moving out and leaving those people jobless, those families have no way to sustain their needs. What a tragedy!!

The fact that a large amount of those unemployed were African American brings into question why those particular businesses moved.

When people have no sustanence in life and can't even find jobs in their neighborhood a community begins to fall apart. Unfortunately for many of these Blacks, they can not follow the job market like others can because they do not have the finances, the right skin color, the transportation, or the assistance from our still-segregated federal (pathetically underfunded) housing programs.

What a world we have made.

With Thought, Meorah