Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ)

Because of America's long history of institutionalized inequity, we have created a hard-core culture of poverty which is a severe affliction to its poor participants.  Those who circulate in well-heeled suburban circles may not see this culture, since it tends to be more common in the urban ghetto than in spit-polished suburbs.   The culture of poverty isn't synonymous with race.  Poor white Appalachian families are as affected as poor ghetto blacks.  

We do not need a justification to end the culture of poverty beyond liberating the people who are mired in it.  The difficult question is, "How?"  Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) program may have found a 'micro-environmental' solution.

HCZ attempts to provide a comprehensive solution within a defined area of Harlem.  Canada determined that poor families there lack most of the services that make middle-class culture more productive: better parenting, better early childhood education, better schools at each level, access to medical care, and so on.   The HCZ program begins with Baby College, a child raising class.  Participants are recruited with street level outreach.

Baby College addresses the first barriers that children encounter as the grow up.  Culture of poverty parents do not talk to their children a lot.  They do not read to their children.  Children hear an overwhelming preponderance of discouraging phrases as they grow up, and few positive ones.  Children born into the culture of poverty will not (usually) develop the essential verbal and personality skills that a high volume of happy chatter between the parent and child encourages.  They will hear far fewer words spoken, and many of the words they hear will be negative instruction:  shut up, sit down, get away from that, stop that, and so on.  In Baby College parents are taught to read to their children frequently, and to engage in continual positive and instructive conversation with their children.

Other parts of the program include medical/dental care, all-day pre-school programs, kindergarten, extended day charter schools. community centers, and college success programs.  In other words, they give children the kind of stimulation which middle class children find critical to their much higher rates of success in life.

It isn't entirely clear how successful HCZ is going to be in overcoming the culture of poverty.  There are other players in the game such as the economy, classism, and racism.  But so far the results far exceed the success rates of most social remediation programs.

Harlem Children's Zone is a good example of a program which might be deemed reformist (however progressive it is).   Some leftists dismiss such programs as mere tinkering with the sinking ship.  The reason why it is important for radicals to pay attention is that 'the revolution' is not going to sweep away all inherited defects of capitalist society.  The victims of capitalism will need healing and rehabilitation after the revolution in order to fully participate in the new society.  Having some idea of what works can hardly be a disadvantage.

The Chinese Communist Party's capitalism fouls it up as effectively as free-enterprise capitalism.  Do you think the Chinese people think it glorious to breathe the filthy air of factory owners who believe it is "glorious to be rich"?

Capitalism Fouls It Up

When accused of threatening the world's environment American capitalists say, "Well, we're not the only ones!" which is true.  China's industrial sewage is huge and growing, India is pretty smoky, and Europe isn't reducing carbon dioxide emissions all that rapidly either.  But the United States is still the largest threat to the climate, and we have contributed the largest amount of CO2 historically.  It is the sorrow of the world that the Crisis of Capitalism, here and abroad, is not merely an abstraction.

Those who own the productive might of the industrialized nations are seated most uncomfortably on the horns of a dilemma:

If they immediately cease producing all the sources of CO2 - cars, planes, electricity generated from coal,   etc., they go broke.  Their capital is tied up in these industries and it can not just be pulled out like a cork in a bottle.  If they don't begin a rapid transition to solar and wind power, and sustainable agriculture and industry, they still go broke and the world withers away during run-away global warming.  We ordinary people are no idle witnesses to the capitalists' dilemma.   It is our world, and if its life support system fails, we will be the first to suffer before we die.

On the North American continent, the signs of progress are sporadic and uninspiring.  If our elected government intended to turn the Titanic of State before it hits the ice berg and sinks, they would abandon
the wars in the Middle East and redirect those many billions of dollars to crash programs of building mass transit systems, fast train infrastructure, and very large installations of solar thermal, solar electric, and wind generation facilities.

What can one person do?

1. Learn as much as you can about how our political and economic system really works.  Global warming is a political problem as much as an environmental one. 
2. Join and support groups that are working for the kind of changes that will preserve a livable environment for the future
3. Reduce your own carbon foot print, if you haven't already done so.  No matter what the government or corporations do, there are still decisions that individuals must make about how they conduct their lives in the context of global warming
4. Support candidates for office who are the most aggressive in their proposals and performance to stop global warming.  For the most part, these will not be Democrats or Republicans.