Us v. Them: Remnants of Urban War Zones

The definition of poverty in developed nations is "lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods, hunger… lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness… unsafe environments; and social discrimination and exclusion" (Raphael, 2013, p. 5). Tenets of this definition are present in many distressed neighborhoods among the nation's largest and often most prosperous cities. This level of deprivation can also be observed in war zones of developing nations within Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Comparing the environments American children live in to those of children living in developing nations is meant to highlight the utter destitution and the need to provide American children with remediated support and intervention. This article discusses how society is fractioned into an "Us. v. Them": the former being mainstream society, individuals who ascribe to middle class values, and exclude and discriminate against the latter, individuals who participate in criminal activity that threaten the middle class quality of life. Mainstream society responds to "their" behavior through policies and practices meant to control individual behavior, rather than providing rehabilitative support and addressing structural injustices that foster this behavior. Likening poor American kids' exposure to community violence to that of former child soldiers and war affected children in war zones, the author highlights that the violence is at a level that can no longer be ignored.