Connect to poverty Fridays: facts suggest unequal access

Children who live in poverty are

• 1.5 to 3 times more likely to die in childhood
  
• 2.7 times more likely to have stunted growth
  
• 3 to 4 times more likely to have iron deficiency before school begins
  
• 1.5 to 2 times more likely to be partly or completely deaf
  
• 1.2 to 1.8 times more likely to be partly or completely blind
  
• about 2 times more likely to have serious physical or mental disabilities
  
• 2 to 3 times more likely to die from accidental injuries
• 1.6 times more likely to catch pneumonia

One might, at first glance, think these statistical conclusions are somewhere overseas, on some foreign soil. However, these statistics actually come from the State of Connecticut (Facts about Homelessness in Connecticut, Child Poverty Council State Plan). When people talk to me of equal opportunity—that is everyone in American has the same opportunity to be up-ward mobile, to experience the American dream, to fulfill the benefits of our constitutional rights to the pursuit of happiness, I wonder what playing field are they playing on?

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“Everyone should just pull up their bootstraps and get to work, then they won’t be dependent on government or charity.”

How many times do I hear this or something akin to it in words and attitude? Problem is, some people don’t even have boots; and some don’t even live long enough to put on these mysteriously, magically appearing boots. (As if everyone is born with these boots.) But enough of the clichés. Fact is we all certainly not on the same playing field; some experience major setbacks, obstacles, and barriers that prevent them from playing the game well, even on the field they have. (Sorry for another cliché and metaphor, but you get the point.) Children—at least the children that make up these demographic profiles—do not have the same level of access to the advantages of our own constitutional rights and economy.

To put it in biblical terms, there are unjust situations within our communities that prevent children from growing up, getting an even start out in life, that oppress their abilities to access the same advantages of other children. Might this be what Isaiah meant when he rebuked Israel?

“So as to deprive the needy of justice 
        And rob the poor of My people of their rights, 
               So that widows may be their spoil 
                    And that they may plunder the orphans” (Isaiah 10:2).

In light of facts like those listed above, we, too, should hear the prophet’s words, “Now what will you do in the day of punishment?” (Isaiah 10:3a). Perhaps, considering what you will do in these days can be a remedy for our indifference and privileged arrogance and the blight of those living with disadvantage.

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