A five-hundred–year-old punchline jabs the pointlessness of sending coal to Newcastle, because Newcastle, in England, actually produced coal and had enough. Sending coal to Newcastle is about pointless gestures.
According to this morning's Associated Press report, gifts are pouring into Newtown, CT, from around the world. Money, toys, food, whatever. Two-point-eight million so far – that is $2,800,000. “On Saturday, all the town’s children were invited to the Edmond Town Hall in Newtown to choose from among hundreds of toys donated by individuals, organizations and toy stores.”
But Newtown’s median household income is $110,000, 220 percent of the national median. Commuters to Manhattan and elsewhere. Doctors, executives, white collar folks. According to its own website’s economic development fact sheet, Newtown has a total population of 27,000, a poverty rate of 2.2 percent, and ZERO children under age 6 living in poverty. Its housing is 94 percent owner occupied. This is a devastated community, absolutely, but it is not a deprived one. I'm guessing the children had enough toys.
At the risk of seeming heartless and cynical, let me be clear: their heartache wasn’t caused by lack of money. And won’t be fixed by contributions. Money – even large amounts of money – can’t make up for the loss of children.
Meanwhile, in Chicago on Saturday, two children died in a fire. Firefighters tried hard to save them. Two others escaped. The fire was started by a hotplate used to heat the house. Two children dead and Child Protective Services took the other two away. Mom wasn’t home at the time of the fire. But she wasn’t known for leaving the kids alone, neighbors said. Maybe she was working? The babysitter bailed, and Mom left the 7-year-old in charge, maybe taking on an extra shift so she could afford toys for Christmas? At UrbanSpirit, we regularly have groups solve their simulated budgeting and childcare issues by leaving it in the hands of the 8-year-old. Maybe rank-and-file newswatchers are already assuming the worst, ready to blame this mother. Prosecutors are thinking of felony child endangerment charges, according to the CBS affiliate in Chicago.
It is possible that we’ll charge the Chicago mother with neglect. And maybe she is at fault. Or maybe not. Sadly, poverty is a crime in America. When you choose among bad choices, you end up with a bad choice. But we'll blame her. Then, we’ll put the surviving kids in foster care and pay the foster parents a stipend to care for them. We will NOT send large amounts of cash to her, and maybe we’ll continue to resent the roughly $103 per taxpayer per year (based on the $50,000 median income) that we contribute to things we call “welfare.”
We feel powerless; I get it. And sending money to Newtown is a nice gesture, I guess; makes us feel better. But there are more effective things we could be doing.
We'll probably have some kind of show of a “national conversation” about gun laws. But we've never shown the kind of political will it would take actually to change the laws.
While we’re at it, though, while we're on the topic of alleviating human misery inflicted by others, let’s have a conversation about regressive taxes, unlivable wages, inaccessible childcare. In Illinois, the average annual cost of infant care is $12,199. The median income for a single mother is $24,833. Illinois has a childcare support program, but does it work? We know that applications and processes can be overwhelming, and changes in work hours or address or income can wreak havoc, and social services are generally the first to get cut when times are tough -- indeed draped over the altar of bipartisanship in Washington today. What went wrong here?
Maybe we can also have a national conversation about the state of low-income housing. The building owner in Chicago was “crushed” by the news. “Wind back the tape and a parent could have been in the house, get everyone evacuated and then everyone would be fine,” he said. But, despite his skillful deflection, it is worth asking what shape the rental was in. How was the wiring? The electricity apparently wasn’t shut off (appliances were working), so why were the hotplate and space heater needed? Is the building owner negligent? complicit? Are prosecutors considering charges against him?
One could argue that Newtown doesn’t need the money. Maybe they’ll use it to build a monument, dedicate a park in memory of the children. Maybe they’ll hire more police officers, though they’ve recently been #10 on a "Top 101 Cities" list for numbers of police per 1000 residents. Maybe they'll establish an anti-gun lobby.
Meanwhile a mom in Chicago cannot afford to bury her dead children, and won’t be trusted to care for the living ones.
There are a lot of conversations to have. But we just keep sending coal to Newcastle.