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Kotlowitz addresses economic, racial divide
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Contributor
Hurricane Katrina pulled back the curtain on the plight of America's poor, author Alex Kotlowitz told an audience of 2,500 attending the first lecture of the 2005-06 Distinguished Speakers Series on Sept. 29 in Alumni Arena.
KOTLOWITZ
Kotlowitz opened his talk with his take on the recent Gulf Coast disaster, saying that what he found most shocking was many Americans' disbelief at the poverty and neglect that was revealed in the wake of the killer hurricane.
"What was so unsettling to me is that so many Americans were surprised and stunned by what they saw," he said. "In my mind, such neglect borders on the willful. How can we not know what our neighbors must bear?"
A former Wall Street Journal reporter, Kotlowitz traveled to the Houston Astrodome following the aftermath of Katrina, meeting with some of the 27,000 storm evacuees housed there.
He told of meeting a woman who had spent eight days floating on a mattress in her living room before she was rescued and a family who took shelter in a mausoleum for seven days. One couple spoke of sitting on a rooftop for three days with an infant son nailed by his clothes to the roof to keep him from falling.
"I was both horrified by these tales and also simultaneously uplifted," Kotlowitz said. "They were indeed stories of being left behind, but also stories of pluck, perseverance, fortitude and heroism. They are not the kinds of stories we are accustomed to hearing from the inner city."
People like to think others are poor because they lack these qualities, he said, but Katrina demonstrated that is not true.
He was struck, he said, by the outpouring of support following the hurricane. "How can there be such generosity alongside such neglect?" he asked.
Neglect of America's inner cities is an issue Kotlowitz tackles head on in "There Are No Children Here," the true story of two boys growing up in Chicago's public housing projects. The 2005 UB Reads selection, Kotlowitz's book was assigned as summer reading for the university's incoming freshmen. A national bestseller, the New York Public Library named it one of the 150 most important books of the past century.
Americans are denying their connections to the poor, Kotlowitz asserted. Such traditional safety nets as welfare are being dismantled. According to figures he cited, 37 million Americans live in poverty; 46 million are without health insurance. Infant mortality rates among African Americans rival those of Third-World nations. Minorities are disproportionately poor, unemployed or imprisoned, he said.
Kotlowitz spent two years in inner-city Chicago with Lafeyette and Pharoah, the brothers who are the subjects of his novel. "What I found was a community that had begun to break apart," he said.
Kotlowitz pointed to the lack of work as one of the greatest obstacles in these communities. Work not only provides money for food, clothes and shelter, he said, but also connects us with the world and grants a sense of purpose and order to life. He said he supports the creation of a public works program in New Orleans to rebuild the infrastructure and reintroduce work to the city.
Kotlowitz noted that inner cities lack such basic necessities as supermarkets, restaurants and banks, as well as diversions like skating rinks or bowling alleys to keep teens off the streets.
"These neighborhoods are void of the very institutions that create a sense of community," he said.
He blamed the creation of black ghettos in the 1960s as the reason most cities remain largely segregated. He said race is a deep fissure in today's society and groups still rarely interact with each other. He noted that loyalties are quickly divided in this environment, creating distrust, such as that of police.
Kotlowitz said there is an institutional silence that drains inner cities of life. He cited the slow government response with local, state and federal aid in the wake of Katrina as a recent, dramatic example of the same sort of neglect he observed as he researched his book. "Where are our civic and political leaders?" he asked, pointing out that neither major candidate addressed the issue of poverty in a significant way during the last presidential election campaign.
"I wish we had more forceful political leaders on these issues," he said.
But Kotlowitz's greatest concern is for the most defenseless-children like Lafeyette and Pharoah. "I had completely underestimated the effect of violence on children," he said. "What I saw in the kids I spent time with is the same kind of post-traumatic stress disorder we see in Vietnam veterans." He talked of children with depression, insomnia, anger, even flashbacks. Most grow isolated, unable to form real connections with others, he said.
A measure of civilization is how well we provide for our most needy, he said. Yet, institutions are failing poor children, he said, noting that while counselors are available following outbreaks of violence in affluent school systems, a school shooting in downtown Chicago garners little reaction from officials or the media.
Kotlowitz talked about a fishing trip he took with five inner-city youths with Outward Bound. All were preoccupied by violence, he said. Five of their fellow students had died or been attacked in the past year. One boy's father had been knifed to death outside a liquor store. When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, the boys began answers with, "If I grow up..."
"Things need not be this way," he said.
Closing with a message of hope, Kotlowitz urged people to step up in the absence of government response.
"Let's build upon what's already working," such as after-school programs, he said. "We've got to make it personal. Somehow, someway, we need to provide for these children a childhood from which they don't need to run."