Poverty and Violence: Assault on Human Rights – Workshop/Conference Friday 10/17

Since 2000, Rochester ranked 11th in the entire U.S. for childhood poverty rates and, more recently, first in New York State. In 2005, Rochester was “Murder Capital” of New York State on per capital basis with 54 homicides. Somehow, the self evident connection between these reports is all but lost in our public discourse and the city’s response to crime in Rochester. The upcoming Poverty and Violence: Assault on Human Rights conference on Friday, 10/17 at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church on 141 Adams St. seeks to correct this. Seats are still available for three public talks this Friday. The conference suggests a 5-10$ donation on a sliding scale basis, however none will be turned away for lack of funds. First, Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn’s keynote talk, “Poverty thrives, how the poor survive” is from 8:45 to 10:00 AM. Second, Elijah Anderson – the featured speaker of the conference - is scheduled from 12:30 to 1:30 for “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male.” And third, the Truth Commission, “Putting poverty on trial” features community testimony and commissioners from the community speaking ‘back’ to poverty. This is scheduled from 3:10 to 5:15PM. For more information, go to: http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf The links between concentrated poverty, joblessness, residential segregation and unprecedented levels of violence should be obvious. While deeply marginalized neighborhoods produce adaptations that are many times wildly creative and resilient, other responses result in heightened rates of violence. The city, however, continues to attribute violence to a vaguely defined set of cultural declines that are divorced from their context of origin. From this perspective, ‘morals’ or ‘family values’ are waning (all on their own as it were), and these then become the objects of public and political discourse while the physical, tactical control of the streets remains the city’s main policy vehicle to address this violence. Despite these problematic responses, the corrosive problem of violence is quite real and threatens to disintegrate the community from within. However, to get a handle on this maddening tragedy at the levels of intellectual engagement, emotional processing, and grassroots organizing and policy making – we desperately need a better set of tools to think with. The arguments offered by the city and the mainstream press are simply too thin for the task at hand. The decontextualized claim that some individuals simply lack ‘morality’ merely promotes fear and, for the loved ones of those victimized by violence, a bewildered grief that forces them to swallow their ambivalence about the increasingly harsh policy ‘solutions’ to the violence. The basic processes driving the current rates of violence have been in the making since the 1960s – concentrated poverty rooted in the structural condition of joblessness tied to racially segregated neighborhoods has marginalized entire segments of the community. First, the type of poverty we are discussing is concentrated poverty clustered in particular neighborhoods. Social scientists characterize neighborhoods with 30% or more of households in poverty as distressed – many inner city neighborhoods in Rochester have well over half their families in poverty. This obviously creates a very different experience than a solitary individual’s experience of poverty – in areas of concentrated poverty the neighborhood social supports are weakened, employment prospects are sparse to non-existent, and other collective resources are simply not available. Indeed, at the household poverty threshold of 30%, a cycle of active disinvestment emerges that, if left unchallenged, diverts even more public resources away from these already frayed neighborhoods. Ultimately, while residents can and do organize against these dynamics, the future increasingly appears dark with anxiety over supporting oneself with dignity. Second, the source of this concentrated poverty is persistent joblessness - a structural deficit in available employment due to broad shifts in public policy and the economy that, since the 1970s, have decimated the manufacturing sector and, crucially, the secondary jobs available for unskilled labor. Concentrated poverty did not suddenly emerge in the 1970s, but the structural characteristic of joblessness tied to de-industrialization has produced deeper and more intense pockets of poverty that are stripped even of the rudiments of labor force participation that characterized previous eras. With de-industrialization, the old manufacturing base has not been replaced in either quality or quantity of new service sector jobs, and those populations hardest hit by these job losses are precisely those with the fewest skills. Thirdly, this concentrated poverty built on joblessness is profoundly racialized: residential segregation in urban centers has dampened the effects of these downturns for majority groups by focusing economic disadvantages within geographically concentrated minority communities. Minority groups take a far larger ‘hit’ with the increasingly unsustainable economy - and this ‘American apartheid’ functions to siphon off discontent from advantaged groups that would otherwise provoke greater resistance to these policies. It bears repeating that since the 1980s, the primary mechanism for controlling segregated minority groups is the historically unprecedented levels of criminalization for both violent and non-violent offenses. This broader form of marginalization provides the proper context for understanding the current levels of violence – it helps account for where violence predominates (segregated communities) and who it primarily victimizes (black male youth). Given the decades long process of increasing marginalization, these levels of violence can better be understood as the unintended consequences of adaptations to these underlying conditions. On the one hand individuals are forced into the underground economy and on the other, are driven by a desperate search for basic respect that emerges in equal proportion to its denial in the broader mainstream community. We need to be clear however that the context of marginalization is the engine that drives these levels of violence – individuals, however misguided, are merely the expression of this pattern. Indeed, once these patterns fester long enough, even the current use of severe and expensive band-aid measures fail to properly contain them. We then have, seemingly out of the blue, the appearance of a crisis that the community should have seen coming years if not decades ago. The current responses to the elevated level of violence – harsh control measures such as the curfew and zero-tolerance policies are – in the most generous possible interpretation – ineffective and panicky responses to the more fundamental problem of marginalization. From a preventive point of view, these policies that attempt to essentially subjugate and control marginalized communities have been abject failures. The crisis in Rochester parallels, in an amplified manner, national trends. The U.S. has both extremely high rates of homicide and the most punitive criminal justice system in the world. Of course, these failures are tacitly allowed to continue, in part, due to the deferred ‘cost’ of these measures away from middle class communities and are, again, concentrated in politically marginalized groups. It should come less as a surprise than as a stark reminder of the disparate effects of these failed policies to note that the 2005 national rate of homicide victimization for blacks was six times that for whites. In addition, this risk of homicide victimization is greatly increased for young men living in large cities with high levels of residential segregation. The Poverty and Violence workshop/conference intends to foster a dialogue on these issues. In the morning, Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn discuss the creative tactics for getting by with help from friends, family, and community. Resistance takes the form of creative engagement – appreciating this is the first condition for understanding poverty as a human challenge rather than as a simple statistic, or worse, framing the poor as simply passive recipients of their fate. Poverty affects both one’s body due to a lack of resources, and sadly, also one’s moral standing in the eyes of others due to a long running ideology of individualism that blames the poor for their own situation. Poignantly, when the poor themselves internalize these stigmatizing cultural scripts as shame, their economic domination is matched by a cultural domination in the form of a negative valuation of the isolated self. The closing Truth Commission, “Putting poverty on trial” from 3:10 to 5:15 also functions to give voice to both the experience and the enduring resilience of the poor. The conference also will host a series of workshops examining local institutions in their relation to poverty (pre-registration required) – these workshops draw on local experts and are focused on the areas of social work, community organizing, violence and the criminal justice response to violence, and the links between poverty and education. Elijah Anderson’s lunchtime talk from 12:30-1:30 ( “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male”) articulates the link between marginalization and violence by focusing on the intersecting race, class, and gender dynamics affecting inner city youth. The ‘code of the street’ is one adaptation to the economic and cultural exclusion in these neighborhoods. This code is a loose but quite real set of norms that transact respect amongst residents in the face of both real and symbolic devaluation from the broader community. As an adaptation, it functions to organize interactions among residents in the vacuum created by the institutional disinvestments of jobs and truly viable futures. The code emphasizes the visceral ‘here’ and the immediate ‘now’, and offers the possibility of an alternate form of respect that is sorely lacking from the broader community. While this code is neither the only set of norms available, nor is it entirely internalized as legitimate by residents – the possibility of this code emerges as an adaptation against the marginalization of inner city communities. According to Anderson, this code must be understood on two levels – on the one hand it enacts an oppositional attitude to marginalization, but on the other, it also dysfunctionally elevates the rates of violence with tragic, cyclical consequences. Ultimately, this code must be understood as a cultural response to the devaluation from the broader, mainstream community – it operates to partially fill the gap left by decades of failed public policy. Again, the Poverty and Violence conference has seats available (5-10$ suggested donation on a sliding scale basis with none turned away for lack of funds) for: 1) the morning speakers – Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn “Poverty thrives, how the poor survive” from 8:45-10:00 AM; 2) Elijah Anderson “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male” from 12:30-1:30PM; and 3) Truth Commission “Putting poverty on trial” from 3:10-5:15PM. For more information, go to: http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf

<p>Since 2000, Rochester ranked 11th in the entire U.S. for childhood poverty rates and, more recently, first in New York State. In 2005, Rochester was “Murder Capital” of New York State on per capital basis with 54 homicides. Somehow, the self evident connection between these reports is all but lost in our public discourse and the city’s response to crime in Rochester. The upcoming Poverty and Violence: Assault on Human Rights conference on Friday, 10/17 at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church on 141 Adams St. seeks to correct this. Seats are still available for three public talks this Friday. The conference suggests a 5-10$ donation on a sliding scale basis, however none will be turned away for lack of funds. First, Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn’s keynote talk, “Poverty thrives, how the poor survive” is from 8:45 to 10:00 AM. Second, Elijah Anderson – the featured speaker of the conference - is scheduled from 12:30 to 1:30 for “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male.” And third, the Truth Commission, “Putting poverty on trial” features community testimony and commissioners from the community speaking ‘back’ to poverty. This is scheduled from 3:10 to 5:15PM. For more information, go to: <a href="http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf">http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf</a></p> <p>The links between concentrated poverty, joblessness, residential segregation and unprecedented levels of violence should be obvious. While deeply marginalized neighborhoods produce adaptations that are many times wildly creative and resilient, other responses result in heightened rates of violence. The city, however, continues to attribute violence to a vaguely defined set of cultural declines that are divorced from their context of origin. From this perspective, ‘morals’ or ‘family values’ are waning (all on their own as it were), and these then become the objects of public and political discourse while the physical, tactical control of the streets remains the city’s main policy vehicle to address this violence. Despite these problematic responses, the corrosive problem of violence is quite real and threatens to disintegrate the community from within. However, to get a handle on this maddening tragedy at the levels of intellectual engagement, emotional processing, and grassroots organizing and policy making – we desperately need a better set of tools to think with. The arguments offered by the city and the mainstream press are simply too thin for the task at hand. The decontextualized claim that some individuals simply lack ‘morality’ merely promotes fear and, for the loved ones of those victimized by violence, a bewildered grief that forces them to swallow their ambivalence about the increasingly harsh policy ‘solutions’ to the violence. </p> <p>The basic processes driving the current rates of violence have been in the making since the 1960s – concentrated poverty rooted in the structural condition of joblessness tied to racially segregated neighborhoods has marginalized entire segments of the community. First, the type of poverty we are discussing is concentrated poverty clustered in particular neighborhoods. Social scientists characterize neighborhoods with 30% or more of households in poverty as distressed – many inner city neighborhoods in Rochester have well over half their families in poverty. This obviously creates a very different experience than a solitary individual’s experience of poverty – in areas of concentrated poverty the neighborhood social supports are weakened, employment prospects are sparse to non-existent, and other collective resources are simply not available. Indeed, at the household poverty threshold of 30%, a cycle of active disinvestment emerges that, if left unchallenged, diverts even more public resources away from these already frayed neighborhoods. Ultimately, while residents can and do organize against these dynamics, the future increasingly appears dark with anxiety over supporting oneself with dignity. Second, the source of this concentrated poverty is persistent joblessness - a structural deficit in available employment due to broad shifts in public policy and the economy that, since the 1970s, have decimated the manufacturing sector and, crucially, the secondary jobs available for unskilled labor. Concentrated poverty did not suddenly emerge in the 1970s, but the structural characteristic of joblessness tied to de-industrialization has produced deeper and more intense pockets of poverty that are stripped even of the rudiments of labor force participation that characterized previous eras. With de-industrialization, the old manufacturing base has not been replaced in either quality or quantity of new service sector jobs, and those populations hardest hit by these job losses are precisely those with the fewest skills. Thirdly, this concentrated poverty built on joblessness is profoundly racialized: residential segregation in urban centers has dampened the effects of these downturns for majority groups by focusing economic disadvantages within geographically concentrated minority communities. Minority groups take a far larger ‘hit’ with the increasingly unsustainable economy - and this ‘American apartheid’ functions to siphon off discontent from advantaged groups that would otherwise provoke greater resistance to these policies. It bears repeating that since the 1980s, the primary mechanism for controlling segregated minority groups is the historically unprecedented levels of criminalization for both violent and non-violent offenses. </p> <p>This broader form of marginalization provides the proper context for understanding the current levels of violence – it helps account for where violence predominates (segregated communities) and who it primarily victimizes (black male youth). Given the decades long process of increasing marginalization, these levels of violence can better be understood as the unintended consequences of adaptations to these underlying conditions. On the one hand individuals are forced into the underground economy and on the other, are driven by a desperate search for basic respect that emerges in equal proportion to its denial in the broader mainstream community. We need to be clear however that the context of marginalization is the engine that drives these levels of violence – individuals, however misguided, are merely the expression of this pattern. Indeed, once these patterns fester long enough, even the current use of severe and expensive band-aid measures fail to properly contain them.</p> <p>We then have, seemingly out of the blue, the appearance of a crisis that the community should have seen coming years if not decades ago. The current responses to the elevated level of violence – harsh control measures such as the curfew and zero-tolerance policies are – in the most generous possible interpretation – ineffective and panicky responses to the more fundamental problem of marginalization. From a preventive point of view, these policies that attempt to essentially subjugate and control marginalized communities have been abject failures. The crisis in Rochester parallels, in an amplified manner, national trends. The U.S. has both extremely high rates of homicide and the most punitive criminal justice system in the world. Of course, these failures are tacitly allowed to continue, in part, due to the deferred ‘cost’ of these measures away from middle class communities and are, again, concentrated in politically marginalized groups. It should come less as a surprise than as a stark reminder of the disparate effects of these failed policies to note that the 2005 national rate of homicide victimization for blacks was six times that for whites. In addition, this risk of homicide victimization is greatly increased for young men living in large cities with high levels of residential segregation. </p> <p>The Poverty and Violence workshop/conference intends to foster a dialogue on these issues. In the morning, Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn discuss the creative tactics for getting by with help from friends, family, and community. Resistance takes the form of creative engagement – appreciating this is the first condition for understanding poverty as a human challenge rather than as a simple statistic, or worse, framing the poor as simply passive recipients of their fate. Poverty affects both one’s body due to a lack of resources, and sadly, also one’s moral standing in the eyes of others due to a long running ideology of individualism that blames the poor for their own situation. Poignantly, when the poor themselves internalize these stigmatizing cultural scripts as shame, their economic domination is matched by a cultural domination in the form of a negative valuation of the isolated self. The closing Truth Commission, “Putting poverty on trial” from 3:10 to 5:15 also functions to give voice to both the experience and the enduring resilience of the poor. The conference also will host a series of workshops examining local institutions in their relation to poverty (pre-registration required) – these workshops draw on local experts and are focused on the areas of social work, community organizing, violence and the criminal justice response to violence, and the links between poverty and education.</p> <p>Elijah Anderson’s lunchtime talk from 12:30-1:30 ( “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male”) articulates the link between marginalization and violence by focusing on the intersecting race, class, and gender dynamics affecting inner city youth. The ‘code of the street’ is one adaptation to the economic and cultural exclusion in these neighborhoods. This code is a loose but quite real set of norms that transact respect amongst residents in the face of both real and symbolic devaluation from the broader community. As an adaptation, it functions to organize interactions among residents in the vacuum created by the institutional disinvestments of jobs and truly viable futures. The code emphasizes the visceral ‘here’ and the immediate ‘now’, and offers the possibility of an alternate form of respect that is sorely lacking from the broader community. While this code is neither the only set of norms available, nor is it entirely internalized as legitimate by residents – the possibility of this code emerges as an adaptation against the marginalization of inner city communities. According to Anderson, this code must be understood on two levels – on the one hand it enacts an oppositional attitude to marginalization, but on the other, it also dysfunctionally elevates the rates of violence with tragic, cyclical consequences. Ultimately, this code must be understood as a cultural response to the devaluation from the broader, mainstream community – it operates to partially fill the gap left by decades of failed public policy. </p> <p>Again, the Poverty and Violence conference has seats available (5-10$ suggested donation on a sliding scale basis with none turned away for lack of funds) for: 1) the morning speakers – Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn “Poverty thrives, how the poor survive” from 8:45-10:00 AM; 2) Elijah Anderson “Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male” from 12:30-1:30PM; and 3) Truth Commission “Putting poverty on trial” from 3:10-5:15PM. For more information, go to: <a href="http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf">http://www.swaarochester.org/Files/SWAA%20brochure.pdf</a></p>