We Need a Resolution - By Toniesha Benthall

“You can be anything you want if you set you mind to it!” This has been the golden line fed to youth for decades which is used to nurture the youth’s hopes and dreams. But what America doesn’t show or tell us is the trials and tribulations that we have to go through in order to grasp what is in reach. Yet we have to find out by enduring these tribulations and as a result of that, some people become discouraged.

Let me just state that anyone who’s never resided in poverty has no place to judge and has no room to point and laugh at such a horrific epidemic. And to anyone who is enduring poverty, it does not give them the permission to rest on their rear end and make excuses for why their life isn’t progressing. Blaming “the man’ has never gotten us poor people anywhere or anything, so what should that propel us to do? As we would say, “get up and go for ours.”

Obviously people do not wish or want to be poor but they do choose whether or not they will remain in that predicament or try to rise above that predicament. Society does however facto into these unfortunate mishaps as well, though they are not the total blame.

When it comes to laying employees off, providing communities with trifling protective services, and so on, society, government etc. are the culprits. They are the dominators and have the authority to shut people out of the so called “American dream.” Urban areas, or more blunt, the ghettos are treated as if they do not exist on the face of this Earth which is one of the number one reasons for high crime rates. Poverty means lack of service and care, from both partied (residents and government), and this is why so many communities are tormented.

Now it is up to us who are in these situations to take a stand and care for our community if no one else will. Unfortunately, not everyone has that type of mind set and will sit back and accept such atrocities and refuse to try and progress which make us just as wrong and guilty.

Welfare, food stamps, section eight, and all of these other appeasements for the less fortunate are why people inadvertently are lazy. The purpose of these programs were to help the poor get on their feet and take their life from there but now the lazy poor are getting a hold of these appeasements and are taking advantage. They have the mind set that if welfare, food stamps, etc. are what I need to get by and comes for free, then why should I waste my time finding legitimate work? That is a very understandable but a simple minded mind set.

This all boils down to everyone coming together to get school attendance in outstanding numbers, more people employed, and less babies being born into poverty. Everyone from poor people, to the government, and even wealthy people should come together. It’ll take all of us to bring this poverty epidemic to a halt because no one should have to endure such a way of living. Instead of America spending millions and billions of dollars to go to war and destroy another country for our own personal gain, we should spend that money to renovate this country which is engulfed in its own destruction. Prominent leaders such as Oprah, Don Cheadle, and others should start with assembling schools in this country first. And instead of us poor people wasting the hard earned or little money that we do have on the lottery, we should put that money into a bank account and make life for the future offspring somewhat finer.