I agree with those of you who articulate the important of individual choices and behavior and the impact they have on a person’s overall well being. I think the hard part comes when you try to understand the ‘why’ behind a person’s choice and behavior. Every decision that any one of us chooses, “makes sense” based on the belief system that drives that behavior.

The reality is that social structural forces have created pockets of segregation and concentrated poverty in our country, and restricted choice and opportunity for residents of these communities. At the same time behaviors that do not support social mobility can be created. But I would argue is that these choices and behaviors are often reflective of the impediments put in front of people, rather than inherit to the group themselves.

When discussing the root causes of poverty we have to pay attention to how structural and cultural forces interact. My own personal belief is that we too often disregard the important of how social structural forces have created and perpetuated inner city poverty. And while I agree that we have to be willing to love and support individuals as they work towards increasing self-sufficiency and family well-being, we have to at the same time address the social structural forces that perpetuate the situations in the first place.

I have read the book Enough by Juan Williams and understand his viewpoint and his concern for individual responsibility. It’s an important conversation. But one of my other points regarding this article was how we often ended up having one conversation or the other, without creating space to engage a more wholistic conversation that is looking at all sides of the situation. I would recommend the book More than Just Race by William Julius Wilson as someone who recently has attempted to engage a conversation from both sides.

Additionally, I believe the church is probably best equipped to hold this comprehensive conversation as well, but too often falls into a more polar conversation again focusing simply on individual choice or structural forces in isolation.

I really couldn't care less about what box one fits into or not. But always harping on whether SOJO writes about one thing or the other is getting a bit old. Maybe finding a blog that writes what he [Ando] likes (i.e. fits into his box) would be a viable alternative to his very frustration.

It's so frustrating to me when I can't squeeze somebody into a metaphorical box.

I agree. Time to look for another blog!

You asked if we have any ideas on how we could make this happen {to better understand the complexity and interconnectedness surrounding issues of poverty}. I will respond by citing some things from my background.

During the depression, my daddy worked at a CCC camp and sent 90% of his earnings home to help my grandparents and my aunts and uncles to survive that period. Then when he married (at age 26), I don't think he and mom ever figured out what casued babies as they had 7 of them over a 20-year span. His wages (minimum wage) was barely enough to put food on the table, but I don't ever remember going hungry. When the surplus food program began during the 1950s, it certainly was appreciated by our family. All of our clothing was used – donated by distant cousins. When I ate my first steak at age 18, I tried cutting it with the edge of my fork because that's the way that we cut the little meat that we shared.

By today's standards, we would be considered to be poor. But our parents always emphasized the value of education, and we knew that if we studied and worked hard that we could change our standard of living. And that, I think, is key to understanding the cycle of poverty and the difficulty that many families face today in extricating themselves from it. There are many cases of 3 generations sharing a single dwelling and no example where older family members have been successful. Sometimes, children in that environment see people in their neighborhood who have nice things that have been obtained illegally and they model that lifestyle.

It's so easy to propose simplistic causes for poverty (War on Poverty, laziness, etc) and to urge those in that condition to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The problem is that in many cases, they have no bootstraps.

I've yet to see anyone on a Sojo blog address the issues that people like Juan Williams brings up in his book, Enough. It will challenge many of the pre-conceived notions that certain political persuasions keep hammering on here.

Having worked in the inner city public schools for a couple of years I have begun to see that the “choices and behavior” category gets blurred with the “structural and economic forces” category. For example, from the suburbs finishing high school is generally a choice. In the inner city I've met good students who had big dreams who had to drop out of school to get a minimum wage job so that food could be on the table. Food now vs. future opportunities. That's economic.

To use the other example of children out of wedlock I point to my own suburban experience. There were several pregnancies in my suburban high school. So what happened to them? Did those girls fall into the cycle of poverty? No. They aborted the baby (if that is kept a secret everyone is happier with that decision than we let on…i.e. look at how we look down on girls in the inner city having kids, would we rather they just abort them?). If they kept the baby then the mom would usually take care of the child so that the mother could finish high school and college first before having to be a mom. My inner city kids don't have that luxury. So they do what a loving mom would do, they drop their lives and they take care of their kids. I didn't even mention the fact that suburban kids can afford birth control whereas poorer kids can't. So let's not judge their sexual activity as something they choose whereas the richer kids don't choose the same. They do, they just have escape routes.

But largely, poverty isn't just about lack of resources, it is about a lack of power. The disempowered and dispossessed are poor, not the other way around.

That's the point where you have a big divide — socialist/communist vs. capitalist. The socialist/communist would say “Hey, that's wrong! The store clerk should live no worse than the engineer. Fine, they can have different vocations, but that should have no impact on their finances.” Then the capitalist would say “These varying levels of money is how the world works. People will have different amounts of money, period, and some people will necessarily be at the bottom. We're not trying to change that. But we do want to give people the opportunity to move between the levels, based in part on their own efforts and skills (although we also know it's 'who you know', not 'what you know', etc. as well). We also want to put a floor on the bottom, so all people have their basic needs met.

I think a person's view on that question will have a big impact on their thoughts about those who are poor.

Personally (not having given a lot of study to this previously), I definitely don't think personal character is the only reason people are poor or rich. I think “like father like son” has a lot to do with it. There are those exceptional people among us who break molds, have strong personal ambition and drive, and venture to new places in life, whether professional or personal. But I think most people (myself included), tend to follow the status quo. And so if my family were all college educated professionals, that's what I'll probably do as well. And if my family are all in more “humble” professions that pay less, that's what I'll probably do as well. Maybe it's not even so much a fault of society as a reflection of human nature.

Now certainly for African Americans there has been real and explicit discrimination that clamped down their career or social prospects. Fortunately that has changed significantly in recent decades, but certainly the effects of that don't just change on the snap of a finger. But there are, and have been, a lot of poor white people in America as well, so racial discrimination can't be the primary issue in relation to wealth.

My answer would be “yes”.

If you look at the statistics, you won't find many people in poverty in the U.S. who finished high school and did not have children out of wedlock. Choosing not to finish high school and to have children out of wedlock certainly fall into the category of “choices and behavior”.

But simply writing off the poor as “people who made bad decisions” isn't what Christ calls us to do. We, as Christians, are called to help people despite the decisions they make in their lives. We are called to show mercy and love. Unfortunately, the belief that everyone should just look out for themselves has been somewhat institutionalized in the American mind. Christians should work to change the underlying assumption that we're all on our own.