The Inheritance of Poverty
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[Applause]
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ah
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i grew up on the wrong side of the
railroad tracks
i was born and raised in the midwest in
a region
colloquially known as the rust belt and
when deindustrialization
suburbanization and white flight reached
dayton ohio
there was a disparate impact on
neighborhoods
property values and school districts
my community was located in the center
of a food desert
surrounded by aging housing and zero
economic investment
so naturally i attended a high poverty
under-resourced
low-performing school district from
kindergarten
through 12th grade in the first grade
i was given the label gifted i loved
school
and excelled in all of my subjects i
remember mastering my multiplication
tables
being assigned more challenging spelling
words than my peers
and reading anything i could get my
hands on
fast forward to high school i graduated
with a 1.2
cumulative gpa i accumulated a total of
63
d’s and f’s on my high school transcript
and i collectively skipped
over 240 days of high school
but before you label me a failure let me
tell you a few facts about my home
environment
i grew up in a house that was
hazardously hoarded
the conditions inside the home were
deplorable
infested with rats and cockroaches which
made it difficult to eat
sleep or to ever enjoy an element of
peace
i used electric fans in the summers and
space heaters during the brisk ohio
winters
each winter i could see my breath every
time i spoke
i never hung a shirt up in a closet i
never folded one
and placed it inside of a drawer and i
never learned how to make a bed
i went to sleep hungry every night for
17 years
and the majority of my after-school
meals came in the form of chips
little debbies and sugary drinks from
the local corner store
from the age of two until the age of 17
i slept on the floor on what i was
trained to call
a pallet never once was i able to sleep
in a bed
because each bedroom was filled to the
brim and inaccessible
i kept my meager school clothes in a
black trash bag
on the floor right next to me where i
slept in an effort to try and keep the
roaches
and rats away on the days i did manage
to attend school
i would sprint to the bus stop early and
shake my backpack so i wouldn’t carry
any cockroaches to school
i never hosted a sleepover and i never
invited a childhood friend inside my
house
earlier this year i read brian
stevenson’s
new york times bestseller just mercy
the book primarily follows the life of
walter mcmillan
an african-american man who was
wrongfully accused of murder
based on the systemic racism in the
community
but there was a particular passage in
the book that gave me chills
because of how it resonated with my
childhood
it read if you act out by saying
something insubordinate
or refuse to comply with an order given
to you by a correctional officer
you are forced to sleep on the concrete
floor of your cell
without a mattress as a child
i always wondered what heinous crime had
i committed
to be sentenced to the floor when i
watched movies
i noticed that even the prisoners had
beds
these moments had a profound impact on
my subconscious
and led to a devaluing of my own
existence
in grade school instead of paying
attention
i would count my classmates and wonder
if i was the only one
sleeping on the floor this anger
manifested itself around the third and
fourth grade
and my grades and behavior took a steep
nose dive
on a path towards self-destruction
many educational researchers have
labeled this phenomena
the fourth grade failure syndrome during
this time
the gifted label i had been given was
being slowly replaced by a new label
at risk in high school
i vividly remember my algebra teacher
from freshman year
he was an older white male an ex-marine
with a snarky sense of humor usually he
was pressing the small black button
in the corner of the class to inform the
school secretary
that i was no longer eligible to remain
in his class
but one day after handing me back one of
my lackluster exams
he said something to me that i will
never forget
he said son some people take algebra 2
but you my friend will take algebra
twice
this was a profound moment for me
because of the juxtaposition of being
told
that i was gifted just eight years
earlier
by this exact same school district
through a mixture of saturday school
summer school
and correspondence packets i somehow
managed to reach the status
of high school senior in lockstep with
my cohort
and there was one day in particular that
i happened to attend school
my senior year that i will never forget
it was the day when two caucasian
admission representatives arrived at my
predominantly black high school
to deliver a presentation in the school
library
per usual i tuned out as i often did
when adults stood in front of me to
speak
i’m not sure if my executive functions
had been altered
because i hadn’t eaten a nutritious meal
in months or if my attention span had
been hijacked
because i opted to sleep in my 1987
non-operational ford tempo the last few
nights to avoid the rats
or maybe i knew that they weren’t there
to recruit students like me
nonetheless one part of their
presentation grabbed my full attention
we have a chick-fil-a and a pizza hut
right on campus
in our main dining hall for someone who
has survived on minimal sustenance
for over a decade those words were music
to my ears and their next words were
even more powerful
the great thing about western kentucky
is we have two routes to admission
either a 2.5 gpa or a 20 composite
on the a.c.t for the first time
in nearly eight years i raised my hand
in an academic setting and asked
so if you have below a 2.5
you can still get in as long as you get
a 20 on the a.c.t
to my delight they confirmed and handed
me a pamphlet with even more details
about this mystical place after the
presentation
i snuck off and caught up with the
recruiters just before they reached the
metal detectors
on their way back to the parking lot i
needed to confirm this peculiar
admissions policy
i began prepping for the exam inside the
house that i hated i sat on a plastic
bin
with hangers pressed against my back and
mice running across my feet
after two weeks of minimal preparation
the time had arrived
i woke up extra early to catch the
public bus downtown
to the prestigious private school where
the test was being administered
i remember walking up to the school and
noticed other kids being dropped off by
their parents
tight hugs and well wishes had filled
the parking lot
it was at this moment i thought to
myself
shimari what the hell are you doing here
there is no way you can score a 20 on
this test
the two weeks of studying an hour a day
was the most time i spent reading since
the third grade
i scored a 20 exactly on the a.c.t exam
that saturday morning
and attended that very college because
of a random presentation
that made promises of a campus
chick-fil-a
and access to a bed my life changed
drastically
because of my score on that test
it was in this dorm room for the first
time in my life
that i had the ability to sit down at a
desk
the opportunity to host friends 24 7
access to fresh food and most
importantly
a bed to sleep in
we know that a child’s listening and
learning skills
behavior and cognitive development all
improve just by sleeping in a bed
and we know that being hungry is
distracting and makes it difficult to
focus
imagine how many of our children are
forced to overcome
not only the structural inequities in
our country but are also chronically
sleeping on the floor
going to bed hungry and shuttled to
schools ill-equipped to prepare them
for the economic realities of the 21st
century
should some of america’s most
disadvantaged students
be measured against students groomed
from the finest private schools
by way of standardized tests
in my unique circumstance the
standardized test was an equalizer
but i was only one missed question away
from extending my 17-year sentence with
oppression
the tight rope walk out of poverty
leaves little to no margin for error
for a country that praises itself on
meritocracy
and class mobility what upward mobility
is truly available
for children from the most disadvantaged
backgrounds
i often wonder what my act score might
have been that saturday morning
had i not faced such daunting barriers
in my home life
my life has not been immune from unjust
encounters with the police
it has included a laundry list of odd
jobs that began as a 14 year old janitor
and i’ve spent many of my adult years
without health insurance
i once heard it said that the biggest
market failure of all
is picking the wrong parents we should
be investing substantially more
resources
into the communities neighborhoods and
school districts
that need them the most to help level
the playing field
for america’s most disadvantaged
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children
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