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America’s Flawed Safety Net
America is facing a mountainous debt, an anemic economy with a shrinking labor market, and an alarming increase in the poverty rate. How America deals with these problems, how they prioritize them, will present a number of really big game changers that could affect the lifestyles of every American. The average American today knows something is wrong with our economy, and they are worried that it will affect their own lifestyles, as well the their children's future, but the problem is they don't know what to do about it. Every family understands the consequences when they get too deeply into debt. But what ...
Teachers: The Front Line in the War on Poverty
One of the many intangibles that holds back poverty victims is the loss of dignity brought on by put-downs and low expectations. Achieving small successes, one milestone at a time, requires a lot of patience. The challenge is to bring harmony and consistency in the child's daily routine in a way that makes progress visible. This cannot be accomplished without the assistance of mentors. For me, those mentors were Job Corps' teachers. Language is one of those discriminators that isolates poverty victims from the middle class. A person can use clothes to disguise their poverty background, and they can use money to give the visual impression they have never known poverty, ...
Without Love There Can be no Miracle
Many years ago I had an epiphany experience that changed my life forever. It was a miracle. The unspoken foundation of a miracle is the presence of pure love. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not God-given laws, but if you are lucky enough to be born in a country which allows every citizen the absolute right to enjoy these freedoms, then you are no doubt grateful that you were not born in a Godless communist nation like, say, North Korea. You have the right to worship, the right to live life to its fullest, and to pursue your individual dreams. If ...
Troubled Teen Escapes Poverty: Achieves Financial Independence
That's me, Doug Wallace, top center in the above photo. My siblings and I lived with our parents in the Kirkpatrick Homes housing projects in Granite City, IL in 1955. There were six of us children back then. Years later, our mother would give birth to two more boys. We lived in abject poverty in a crowded housing project apartment where food, shelter and safety were never assured. By the time I was fourteen years old I was firmly entrenched in the culture of poverty. In reality I was afraid of being stuck in the cycle of poverty, but you couldn't tell that by my behavior. As a teenager, my life ...
Indie Award For Best Non-Fiction: Reader Reviews
Aftr receiving the Indie Next List Notable award for best non-fiction my email inbox started getting crowded from readers, some who knew me from way back when, and some were people who crossed my path during my life journey, and others were from people who were touched by my story. I have selected letters from people who have written via email after reading my book. Due to space limitations, I couldn't include everyone's letter. If I omitted yours, please forgive me. The following are the reviews chosen from my email files: Letter from Book Club in Dallas, TX: The letter was written by a ...
Teens in Poverty Face Life-Changing Choices
In the poverty neighborhoods of east Nashville, we lived in a time and a place in which rules were far less important than a healthy self-image. When your sense of self-worth is constantly hammered, demanding respect is the measure by which we hold on to our dignity. If we didn't get that respect, then we fought---yes it was wrong, but it is one of the ways the poverty culture teaches troubled teens to deal with a low sense of self-worth. Respectability expands opportunities for “self-determination," and opens the doors for communicating with the other social economic classes. It was an unspoken knowledge that blending in with the ...
Troubled Teens: How Can We Save Them?
When thinking about the culture of poverty, start with the proposition that poverty is evil– people are not. By way of example, we’re all born equally innocent, a happy baby in search of the good. There is no rule that says a child born in poverty is less innocent, less intelligent, less motivated, or less important that a child born into immense wealth. So, what happens to cause children to drift away, or digress from that which humans are naturally built to do—quest after the search of good? Mike Tyson, by the age of thirteen, had been arrested over a dozen times ...
Life Choices:Free Will or Destiny
“Do you believe in destiny or free will,” I asked my wife. “Well,” she replied. “If you were meant to be shot, then you will never have to worry about drowning.” "Thought provoking response," I amused, but I couldn’t help wondering what about those babies born into poverty? Where they meant to endure hunger, violence, deprivation and inequality as their destiny based solely upon the fact that they were born into poverty? Of course not—every child born in America should have an equal opportunity for a better life. Belief in fate and destiny are major tenets of my belief system. I believe this is the key ...
How to Overcome the Odds
A university in New Jersey is using my memoir this semester as part of their studies in sociology. A couple of days ago I received a very nice letter from the Professor of Sociology at the university in which she made the following comment, ”We enjoyed reading about your struggles because as sociology majors we were able to use the sociological imagination to learn a lot and understand a lot about your life.” She sent a list of questions from some of the students who wanted to know a little more about my story. I was greatly honored that the university ...
Troubled Kids Join Street Gangs for Protection
I was barely a teenager when I first learned about reducing fractions to their lowest common denominator. It’s not that I hated math. I was gifted with the ability to do many math equations in my head without the need of a calculator or a writing pad. But, our family moved so frequently, from one run-down neighborhood to the next, attending schools in some of the worst schools in the area. Throughout my childhood I had limited access to a quality education as did all all eight of us children. It was rare for us to finish a school year ...
Teachers at Work
When I was contacted by the Principal at the Junior High School in Llano, Texas a few months back, I was thrilled that they had chosen to use my book to study the sociology of the culture of poverty. I had no idea of the adventure I was about to experience. Students were engaged in my story in a way that I could have never predicted. They related to my story of being born into generational poverty. They shared their own stories of poverty, and they did something that neither I nor the teachers anticipated; they openly discussed their own internal fears and concerns in comparison ...
Character Counts
One of the benefits of aging is that you acquire wisdom. Certain young people value the opinions of their elders, and will often ask questions like, What advice to you give to someone who really wants to succeed financially? I used to ask the same kind of questions to my elders during my younger years. Out of all the advise I received, the most valued was from my college roommate's father. My roommate had invited me to his parent's house in Milwaukee, WI for the weekend. After dinner my roommates father asked if he could speak with me privately. He pulled me aside and said, ...
Myths and Inconvenient Truths About Children in Poverty
There are many unknown factors when it comes to poverty, especially if you come from a background of the middle and upper classes. Though we can't predict the future, we can dispel some myths, and confirm some inconvenient truths, that collectively affect the sense of self worth and behavior of poverty victims, and make escaping poverty far more daunting than most people realize. This post will explore some of the myths, and inconvenient truths that affect the self-esteem and behaviors of impoverished families and over time gives little incentive for them to make it in the mainstream society. The important thing to recognize is that though many of these ...
Sargent Shriver: A Man Who Had Been Given a Great Gift
Sargent Shriver died on January 11, 2011. Lyndon Johnson once referred to Sargent Shriver as "Mr. Poverty," because of his extensive work in creating programs like the Jobs Corps. Today, poverty levels are at an all time high. Our nation could learn a lot about the culture of poverty by studying the life of Sargent Shriver, a man who was given a great gift. The gift of understanding the real needs of children born into poverty. "If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigid caste society.” These are the words of Sargent ...
Author Interview: Sociology Students Ask Questions About Growing up Poor
The Project: Students studying sociology at a northeasrtern university were asked to read the memoir, "Everything Will Be All Right", as a class assignment. They were asked to use their sociological imaginations to study the behavioral patterns of children born into generational poverty. Upon completion of the class, they were asked to submit questions to the author. The professor then picked a select group of questions from the students and sent them to me. If you have read my memoir, this post will be interesting to you. If you have not, I encourage you to read it anyway because it will provide great insight into ...
The War on Poverty Can be Won in the Classroom
I know I have written several articles about the importance of mentors for children born into poverty. But, I'll say it again, without mentors, most children born into poverty are destined to remain stuck in the cycle of poverty. I know many of you, dear readers, are teachers currently using my memoir in your classrooms as a real life example in the study of the culture of poverty. I really enjoy the Q & A sessions with the students. An example of the type of questions which student's ask can be found on my website at Students Interview Poverty Victim. I believe discussions like these can take a lot ...
War! Good God Y’all!
My wife's dog recently threw-up several bits and pieces of something rotten he apparently found and ate while roaming around our farm. Before my wife could clean up the mess, the dog had eaten up everything he had regurgitated. It's a disgusting thing for us humans to witness, but in the dog's world, it is normal behavior. War, like eating your own vomit, is a disgusting thing for us humans to contemplate, whether watching it live on cable news or reading stories about it in the international newspapers. But just as watching a dog eating his own regurgitation is disgustingly normal, so ...
The American Crisis in 2012
The January-February 2011 issue of Harvard Magazine, speaking of America’s stagnant economy and rising debt said the following:""Most Americans have not experienced austerity in a long time, so the decade ahead may come as a shock. Expect continued high unemployment, slow wage growth, the possibility of social and political unrest, higher taxes and cuts in government services.” One would think that when faced with the reality that the car is heading toward a cliff, the logical thing to do would be to hit the brakes. Yet it is clear that gridlock in Washington means America's debt problem will only get worse ...
Moving Customer Service to Asia is a Dumb Idea
A recent New York Times article reports that "Americans calling the customer service lines of their airlines, phone companies and banks are now more likely to speak to Mark in Manila than Bharat in Bangalore." Well, this week I spent nearly four hours on the phone with a Dell customer service call center. I don't know if I was talking with either Mark in the Philippines or Bharat in Banalore, but whoever it was, the call was a disaster. I made several attempts to alert Dell that they were sending multiple computers as well as multiple monitors to my home address. My message was ...
Is it Arrogance or Outright Disrespect?
In day-to-day discourse, we inevitably encounter people who are disrespectful in their behavior towards others. I sometimes think this is a character flaw unique to humans. For example, my English Mastiff, Fonzie, gets alongs well with Fuzzy the cat. Like the store clerk who completely ignores you as you stand in front of the checkout counter ready, willing and able to spend your hard-earned money. And, not a day goes by without some maniac driver swerving their moving vehicle in front of mine, just so he/she can get one car length further down the road. Why are there so many drivers on ...
The Mayans May Very Well Have Gotten it Right
Throughout the history of mankind, the calendar has been the central organizing instrument for society to measure time. That was true thousands of years ago and it is still true today. The calendar is the indisputable instrument for organizing our global society and no one did it better than the Mayans. The way we frame, react and prioritize time impacts everything about our lives, including the patterns of our natural behavior. Similarly, we use the clock to break down time into smaller measurements, just because it enables us to frame, react to, or prioritize our calendar day in greater detail. A valid ...
It’s Called Free Will For a Reason
There are a lot of classic year-end resolutions made during this time of the year. But there is a big difference between the commitments we make and the actions we take. We say the words with good intentions and try to make sense of them according to the personal significance they have upon our feelings, our emotions, our vanity, and our present state of mind at a specific moment in time. And, for some of us, the more often you hear new year resolutions, the less faith you have in the commitments. As we grow older the process seems more old-style, ...
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America’s Flawed Safety Net
America is facing a mountainous debt, an anemic economy with a shrinking labor market, and an alarming increase in the poverty rate. How America deals with these problems, how they prioritize them, will present a number of really big game changers
more -
Teachers: The Front Line in the War on Poverty
One of the many intangibles that holds back poverty victims is the loss of dignity brought on by put-downs and low expectations. Achieving small successes, one milestone at a time, requires a lot of patience. The challenge is to bring h
more -
Without Love There Can be no Miracle
Many years ago I had an epiphany experience that changed my life forever. It was a miracle. The unspoken foundation of a miracle is the presence of pure love. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not God-given laws, but if you are lucky
more -
Troubled Teen Escapes Poverty: Achieves Financial Independence
That's me, Doug Wallace, top center in the above photo. My siblings and I lived with our parents in the Kirkpatrick Homes housing projects in Granite City, IL in 1955. There were six of us children back then. Years later, our mot
more -
Indie Award For Best Non-Fiction: Reader Reviews
Aftr receiving the Indie Next List Notable award for best non-fiction my email inbox started getting crowded from readers, some who knew me from way back when, and some were people who crossed my path during my life journey, and others were
more -
Teens in Poverty Face Life-Changing Choices
In the poverty neighborhoods of east Nashville, we lived in a time and a place in which rules were far less important than a healthy self-image. When your sense of self-worth is constantly hammered, demanding respect is the measure by wh
more -
Troubled Teens: How Can We Save Them?
When thinking about the culture of poverty, start with the proposition that poverty is evil– people are not. By way of example, we’re all born equally innocent, a happy baby in search of the good. There is no rule that says a child bor
more -
Life Choices:Free Will or Destiny
“Do you believe in destiny or free will,” I asked my wife. “Well,” she replied. “If you were meant to be shot, then you will never have to worry about drowning.” "Thought provoking response," I amused, but I couldn’t help
more -
How to Overcome the Odds
A university in New Jersey is using my memoir this semester as part of their studies in sociology. A couple of days ago I received a very nice letter from the Professor of Sociology at the university in which she made the following comment, ”We e
more -
Troubled Kids Join Street Gangs for Protection
I was barely a teenager when I first learned about reducing fractions to their lowest common denominator. It’s not that I hated math. I was gifted with the ability to do many math equations in my head without the need of a calculator or a writing p
more -
Teachers at Work
When I was contacted by the Principal at the Junior High School in Llano, Texas a few months back, I was thrilled that they had chosen to use my book to study the sociology of the culture of poverty. I had no idea of the adventure I was about t
more -
Character Counts
One of the benefits of aging is that you acquire wisdom. Certain young people value the opinions of their elders, and will often ask questions like, What advice to you give to someone who really wants to succeed financially? I used to ask the s
more -
Myths and Inconvenient Truths About Children in Poverty
There are many unknown factors when it comes to poverty, especially if you come from a background of the middle and upper classes. Though we can't predict the future, we can dispel some myths, and confirm some inconvenient truths, that collective
more -
Sargent Shriver: A Man Who Had Been Given a Great Gift
Sargent Shriver died on January 11, 2011. Lyndon Johnson once referred to Sargent Shriver as "Mr. Poverty," because of his extensive work in creating programs like the Jobs Corps. Today, poverty levels are at an all time high. Our nation could learn
more -
Author Interview: Sociology Students Ask Questions About Growing up Poor
The Project: Students studying sociology at a northeasrtern university were asked to read the memoir, "Everything Will Be All Right", as a class assignment. They were asked to use their sociological imaginations to study the behavioral patterns of
more -
The War on Poverty Can be Won in the Classroom
I know I have written several articles about the importance of mentors for children born into poverty. But, I'll say it again, without mentors, most children born into poverty are destined to remain stuck in the cycle of poverty. I know many of
more -
War! Good God Y’all!
My wife's dog recently threw-up several bits and pieces of something rotten he apparently found and ate while roaming around our farm. Before my wife could clean up the mess, the dog had eaten up everything he had regurgitated. It's a disgusting thin
more -
The American Crisis in 2012
The January-February 2011 issue of Harvard Magazine, speaking of America’s stagnant economy and rising debt said the following:""Most Americans have not experienced austerity in a long time, so the decade ahead may come as a shock. Expect continued
more -
Moving Customer Service to Asia is a Dumb Idea
A recent New York Times article reports that "Americans calling the customer service lines of their airlines, phone companies and banks are now more likely to speak to Mark in Manila than Bharat in Bangalore." Well, this week I spent nearly fo
more -
Is it Arrogance or Outright Disrespect?
In day-to-day discourse, we inevitably encounter people who are disrespectful in their behavior towards others. I sometimes think this is a character flaw unique to humans. For example, my English Mastiff, Fonzie, gets alongs well with Fuzzy the
more -
The Mayans May Very Well Have Gotten it Right
Throughout the history of mankind, the calendar has been the central organizing instrument for society to measure time. That was true thousands of years ago and it is still true today. The calendar is the indisputable instrument for organizing our g
more -
It’s Called Free Will For a Reason
There are a lot of classic year-end resolutions made during this time of the year. But there is a big difference between the commitments we make and the actions we take. We say the words with good intentions and try to make sense of them according
more
