Kids in Poor Communities See What We Value & It Ain’t Them

Anyone who’s ever had a hobby, a child, or been in a relationship knows, we value those things we devote time, energy, and money towards. Those things we don’t, we don’t. America’s poor children of color see what we value and it ain’t them. The lip service we pay as a society isn’t borne out by our actions or their reality. What’s worse is they know and internalize this at a very young age often with negative effects on themselves, their communities, and society.

Kids see what you do, more than listen to what you say. Poor children of color, at an earlier age than most people realize, internalize just how little they’re valued by society. By seven years old, I understood instinctively that society didn’t value a poor, black child like me. I perceived this from both the presence and absence of things. I saw it daily in the absence of kindness or validation by institutional authority figures. I witnessed it in the lack of economic investment in my hometown of Camden, New Jersey. In the way, deteriorating conditions were allowed to persist around me. I felt it from the ubiquity of…