Violence and Poverty

Reading chapter 7 from our text this week made me incredible angry at politicians in general. The way Mike Males laid out his argument (that poverty is the root cause of violence) and backed it up with a wealth of evidence and statistics made me angry at the way the issue is being handled by politicians and portrayed by the media. I was also angered by the fact that so much violence and abuse committed against kids is done by adults who are supposed to be the ones in our society with the ability to act responsibly and act on good values. The fact that the media doesn't mention any of this and goes so far as to blame kids and their innate tendency towards violence and misbehavior disgusts me. In this day and age, I thought we were supposed to be a society that values correct information and scorns ignorance, but this article makes me think that people are willing to be force fed any information by a person or organization that seems to have authority over an issue. This article provides an example of a research driven insight into a very serious issue and it is a shame that it is not more widely available to the mass public. If everyone was able to read this article, I think they would share my anger and disgust and take the time to not only look into this one issue with more depth but a whole host of issues that are just as susceptible to misinformation and spin by the media and politicians. This article also makes me want to become more of an advocate for those in poverty because of how it leads to such a large amount of problems beyond those that are the most obvious.