Tightrope

Adult nonfiction 

      "...The kids on the bus as it careened toward Yamhill each morning were sure that their world would be better than their parents' had been.  

     Yet these kids ended up riding into a cataclysm, as working-class communities disintegrated across America, felled by lost jobs, broken families, and despair.  About one-fourth of the kids who rode with Nick on the bus are dead from drugs, suicide, alcohol, obesity, reckless accidents, and other pathologies."

     Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a wife and husband Pulitzer Prize winning writing team, have covered desperate poverty in far away nations.  In Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope they have turned their journalistic gaze on America.  But it's even more personal than that.  Yamhill, Oregon, is where Kristof grew up.  It's where his parents' generation experienced upward mobility and his the exact opposite.  Chapters about issues are made up close and personal by glimpses into the shattered lives of people he and his wife know intimately.

     It's important to point out here that Kristof and WuDunn are not painting their subjects solely as victims.  They are candid about the role of poor decisions in their fates.  They also portray people who have come from similar backgrounds and created successful lives.  What they're saying is that America's obsession with personal responsibility obscures the even greater need for social responsibility.  They describe a myriad of forces that were stacked against those bus riding kids as they transitioned into adulthood.

     We tend to think of pushers as disreputable characters dealing illicit drugs on street corners.  A large percentage, however, have medical degrees, enjoy financial security and social prestige, and will never join their patients in prison.  In the 90s Purdue Pharma discovered that opioids could be real money makers and pimped doctors and dentists aggressively.  The path to addiction for so many people starts with an impacted wisdom tooth or a combat injury.  

     Adam probably saved me from this fate.  A dentist aggressively pushed a large quantity of one of those pain meds.  I was pregnant and just saying no to anything that might harm my unborn baby.

     We tend to see holding down a job as a cornerstone of adult personal responsibility.  But what if jobs disappear due to factors such as overseas outsourcing and automation?  People with a high school diploma or less are hit especially hard.  Kevin had two companies he worked for close.  Unable to keep up with child support payments, he lost his driver's license, making job searching much harder.

     But even victims  of major layoffs can be helped by proactive social policies.  Kristof and WuDunn cite the work of sociologist Victor Chen who contrasted the plights of American and Canadian workers laid off by General Motors and Ford.  The Canadiens were better off, and not just because of a more robust safety net.  

     "Within twenty-four hours of a big layoff on the Canadian side, the government set up an 'action center' to help with job searches, government benefits, and access to refocused training programs.  Peer aides would help with preparing resumes and finding solutions."

     Many people tout education as an equalizer.  However, in America it exacerbates inequities.  In other countries there is more spending on disadvantaged children than privileged ones.  America, however, bases school funding on property taxes, ensuring huge educational resource gaps between wealthy and impoverished children.

     And that's only the tip of the iceberg.  But Kristof and Wudunn remain hopeful.  They give advice on ways individuals can make a difference including holding politicians on both sides of the accountable.

     "Wiser policy requires our country to possess a richer understanding of why people fall behind, a deeper comprehension of how many children grow up with the odds stacked against them.  Yes, they make mistakes, but in some cases we fail them before they fail us."

     Tightrope is an essential read for politicians, educators, clergy, social workers, journalists, medical professionals, and everyone who gives a damn about the rapidly increasing number of our fellow citizens who are left far behind in a nation that pays lip service to liberty and justice for all.

On a purrrsonal note, the Commuter Lounge finished off Commuter and Nontraditional Students Week with an ice cream sundae bonanza.  Needless to say, it was very popular and successful.  (Jules)

Well, yeah.  Ice cream is good stuff.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our readers with best wishes for a great weekend.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone