Generational Poverty

There is a need for systematic change in order for communities like Jane and Finch to get back in order. The people in my community can plead and beg for help, but it will never happen until the youth in the area grow up and become the change that is needed. I aspire to be a criminal lawyer for the Blacks in my neighbourhood. My ultimate goal is becoming a judge. I want to pursue a career in the field of law because there is not enough Black lawyers to represent Black offenders. I truly believe that the criminal justice system was not created for minorities, it was created to benefit Whites. The policies and laws that were set into place were meant to protect Whites by maintaining their powers. They are in control of everything in our society and have the power to deny people access to services. I want to become a Black lawyer so I could get into the justice system and be the change that my people need. Like Mammoliti said, the Jane and Finch community has been suffering for over 60 years. The fact that a politician can acknowledge the suffering of an entire community, leads me to believe that the government is more than aware of the political and social problems within my community. If and when the government decides to help, they should look into creating jobs and opening up rehabilitation and harm reduction centres. They should stop investing their money into the police force who have an agenda to criminalize minorities in my community and start helping us by investing in services. Despite the stereotypical image of my community, the residents are humans first before they are criminals or welfare recipients. The youth in my community have the potential to break the curse of generational poverty, but we need tools to release our talents. Until these changes come, the world will never know the potential the Jane and Finch community has. 

Looking at the photo below, many of us would draw different conclusions about the main message it is sending out. When I look at that picture, it represents the relationship between the government and the Jane and Finch community. Historically, White people have systematically denied Blacks various opportunities, simply because of their skin colour. When thinking of the question about why it is that Black individuals in the Jane and Finch community are more likely to stay in generational poverty, it is because the government wants it to stay like this. They prevent the Blacks in the community from gaining access to resources by criminalizing them. The over policing in my community exists to turn local residents in inmates. Once these inmates are released from jail, society shuns them from gaining access to their services. Thus, these “criminals” are forced to rely on illegal job opportunities that puts them at great risk of reoffending. The drug dealers sell drugs to other local residents and this creates addicts. The government knows this problem exists. The Blacks in my community are stuck in a loophole. When I look at this photo I cannot help but think that the White man is to blame for the downfall of Blacks. I cannot help but think that the government benefits from the pain of my community. They refuse to help Blacks because they want to maintain power while suppressing minorities. The government is doing a good job at over policing and denying services for an entire community while blaming the resident’s for the outcome of their lives. It is safe to say that the government is to blame for the failure of the Jane and Finch community.

Thearcticiscalling (2013, February 28). #political #world hunger #poverty #inequality [Tumblr Post]. Retrieved from http://thearcticiscalling.tumblr.com/post/44259671992

After Giorgio Mammoliti’s racist comments regarding the Jane and Finch community, the youth stood up against him to show that they are more than “cockroaches” and “murderers”. The youth in my community often use their powerful voices to condemn hatred. In the Jane & Finch community, we spread love. 

According to this racist politician who represents a predominately Black Neighbourhood, Black people are “cockroaches” who need to be eradicated. This is reality. 

Comparing Blacks to cockroaches is not only offensive, but it is obliviously racist. To make the assumption that Blacks in my neighbourhood are angry all the time and constantly killing people because of our surroundings is completely stereotypical and ignorant. The people in the Jane and Finch area are not mad at our community, in fact we love it, but we are mad at politicians like Mammoliti who stereotype us instead of doing their jobs and helping us. We are mad at police officers who target us instead of protecting us; It is like we are the monsters and the world needs to be saved from us. Although there are murders in my community, bad things happen everywhere and these racist politicians who are supposed to represent us tend to focus on the negatives instead of the positives. Crime would be reduced in my neighbourhood if they addressed the core issue—poverty. People would not be selling drugs if they had stable jobs, but this is not possible since the government has made it clear that they have no intentions to provide services that are needed in the community. Their main goal is not to help Black people, it is to eradicate us. 

There are a lot of youth in the Jane and Finch community that want to make a change. Many youth, including myself, have attempted to start programs in the neighbourhood that could potentially reduce illegal activities. My friends and I attempted to start a summer camp called “Youth In Action” and it was aimed at children from 6-12 to be apart of numerous fun activities on a daily basis. Through doing this, we saw an opportunity for youth who had never been employed to take on leadership position roles. However, we got limited funding because we were young and the program failed. This experience made me think of the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and how much opportunities were missed based on people’s low incomes. I currently work at a Walmart located in Jane and Finch and it saddens me how much individuals cannot afford their groceries. People often share stories with me about how much they wished they had funding to buy healthy food for their children. In a reading called “Basic income could work — if you do it Canada-style” by Brian Bergstein, he talks about how low income individuals are struggling to get by on a daily basis and it affects their mental wellbeing. However, this changed for 4,000 people in Ontario because they were offered basic income which boosted them 75% above the poverty line (Bergstein, 2018). There was no strings attached to this offer except for the fact that it was a test funded by the provincial government which aimed to get people out of poverty (Bergstein, 2018). After reading this article, I could not help but think what would happen if this test was implemented in the Jane and Finch community. Would people be happier? Would crime be significantly reduced? Personally, I think it would bring a positive change to the community and I wish my local residents could be exposed to this opportunity. As I mentioned before, a lot of people in the community want to make a change, but we need help from the government since we already face systematic barriers with law enforcement. Opportunities like the one presented above could play a role in many people getting out of generational poverty. It would provide stability and more people would be encouraged to focus on their futures by legally participating in society. 

As I mentioned from before, the drugs that are sold in my community are being bought by other Black individuals and it is creating dysfunctional members in society. The individuals taking the drugs do it because it is an escape from their pain or they either got severely addicted to it and cannot stop using it. Either way, these individuals need help. If you walk down the streets of Jane and Finch, it is likely that you would encounter a Black “crazy” homeless individual. The addicts within my community do not know how to get rid of their addiction because there are no local resources to help them with their issues. The government needs to help the Jane and Finch community by implementing harm reduction and rehabilitation centres. Harm reduction centres would be beneficial because they allow for individuals to use drugs in front of them, but safely. The reading “Best Practice Recommendations” thoroughly explains why using drugs safely is important and this is because it reduces the risk of addicts transmitting some sort of disease. They provide clean tools such as crack pipes, needles and other tools that are needed in order to reduce harm that might be inflicted, other than them obviously putting drugs into their bodies (Best Practice Recommendations, 2013). They also help addicts by slowly reducing their drug dosages to reduce withdrawal affects and this can be can be brutal. On the other hand, rehabilitation centres provide the same services, but they actively take care of their members by allowing patients to check-in (i.e. sleepover) for a certain amount of time (Andersen, 2019). They provide therapy and try to get the broken individuals back on track. These services would be beneficial within the Jane and Finch community because they are systems that help individuals become functional members of society. It would also help reduce the amount of homeless people that are on the streets because opportunities like this would give them a purpose. 

If you would like to listen to the song I referenced, feel free :)

In my community, young Black males often talk about how selling drugs saved them from being visibly homeless. A lot of these young men write about their struggles through their music. I know people in Jane and Finch who are literally one sale away (i.e. selling crack rocks) from becoming homeless. As a result of this, these men hustle to make ends meet. In other words, they sell drugs to pay their parents bills. Most people would think this lifestyle is sad or even traumatizing, but the Blacks in my neighbourhood are used to it. They have accepted their realities and break the White man’s rules. If legal jobs are not provided, then they create their own jobs despite how police officers feel and they are willing to risk their freedom to survive. A young man that goes by the name of JNeat is the embodiment of this lifestyle and he often raps about it in his music. JNeat is a known figure in the Jane and Finch community and people listen to his music. In a song called “Drip Freestyle”, he often references how selling drugs has saved his life. To be specific he said, “I ran to that bag they be lazy…I was robbin’ the trap is what saved me. In the field like a nigga playin’ football. Got the place still jumpin’ like John Wall, I started getting money now they pissed off. Watch that dope lock like a pit jaw” (Inc, 2018). To translate, he is bragging about how much money he makes by selling dope (i.e. crack) and is making it known that this is his hustle. Selling drugs in my community has become normalized to the point where there is competition about who profits the most. Although this seems absurd, one must consider why Black men within my neighbourhood became comfortable with selling drugs. This is because they were born into generational poverty and had to find alternatives to make money. JNeat is a personal friend of mine and he often tells me that his end goal is to take his mother and siblings out the hood by saving up the money he makes.

In the Jane and Finch community, Blacks are forced to depend on illegal opportunities that bring in money because we are labelled as criminals. A company will not hire an individual who has been in prior problems with law enforcement. In addition to this, there is an economic disparity in Canada which can be described as the uneven distribution of income and wealth. In a short article called “Income Inequality”, it discusses how this issue affects every Canadian differently. Racialized and Indigenous people suffer from wealth disparities at large in Canada and this is a result of racism and colonialism (Income Inequality, n.d). Minorities that suffer from economic inequalities often receive less job opportunities (Income Inequality, n.d). The government knows that economic disadvantages are prevalent across my community and I believe they do not care. The Jane and Finch community is predominately Black, and if you are White, you are the minority. The only way to reverse this economic inequality is by implementing public policies that deliberately focus on shared prosperity and equitable wealth for all (Income Inequality, n.d). However, I doubt this will happen because the government is responsible for over policing the community. If it was a predominately White neighbourhood dealing with these same issues, the government would implement resources that would benefit the public. Why would the government care about a Black person’s economic well-being when they are focused on locking us up? They simply do not care about people who look like me and would rather watch us suffer than interfere. When you combine the daily struggles of Blacks in the Jane and Finch community along with systematic racism, it becomes vividly clear as to how people suffer from generational poverty and why it is hard to break the cycle. 

Growing up as a Black female in a predominately Black neighbourhood, I had to witness a lot of Black males in the community and in my family get put behind bars. I have been in cars where my Black father had been pulled over for no reason. I had to watch him get harassed by White police officers. I went to a school called C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute where the police would casually roam the hallways as if they were students themselves. They never made the Black youth feel safe, just scared. I have walked down the streets of the Jane and Finch community with my Black male friends and had police officers approach us because they “fit a description of a young male who had just committed a crime”. They would taunt my brothers with questions about their whereabouts. I had my home raided by a bunch of White male cops with loaded guns pointed to my head along with my nieces because they were searching for illegal weapons and crack. They found an ounce of weed and had to release my mother. When my Black niece who is now 10 years of age asked me about the day our home got raided and why, I had to explain to her that the system and the White man hate our people and will do anything in their power to criminalize us for trying to survive. She broke down in tears. According to Jay Z, “police issue possession citations in Black and Latino neighbourhoods at a far higher rate than other neighbourhoods” (Alliance, 2016). This has been my reality growing up as a Black female in the Jane and Finch community and I know I am not the only one. It is hard to make it out of a community that is built to tear you down. It is hard to break the curse of generational poverty when the odds of the world are against you. My people are targeted because we have darker skin than our peers. 

If you would like to watch this insightful video in which I took my quotes from, feel free :) 

Alliance, D. P. (2016, September 15). Jay Z - The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSozqaVcOU8

Alliance, D. P. (2016, September 15). Jay Z - The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSozqaVcOU8

Alliance, D. P. (2016, September 15). Jay Z - The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSozqaVcOU8

Alliance, D. P. (2016, September 15). Jay Z - The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSozqaVcOU8