Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
I think you're putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.
In Africa, poverty is a direct result of governmental corruption and exploitation. A lack of proper sex education is the result. People cannot afford condoms -- or are ignorant about them, but either way, this ignorance is a result of structural systems of corruption, exploitation, racism and violence which have created the system of poverty Africans face. A lack of sex education is a symptom, not the cause.
In the South, you're dealing with a culture whose economy has always been primarily agricultural. The end of the Civil War brought a dramatic reorganization of the economic systems of the South (cheap labor, mass-produced goods), as well as economic penalties that benefited the northern states, who increasingly moved towards industrialization in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This had a direct impact on Southern economies, as did the rise of globalization, the cost of growing and planting, etc. Additionally, the rise of crises of climate and supply and demand, as well as globalization throughout the late 1900s, created a system where Southern state economies were squeezed far more than their northern counterparts, creating a system where Southern flight was inevitable. Those who could afford to leave did, leaving those who could not afford to behind.
So in looking at the South, you're dealing with a history of a turbulent economy, the ravaging affects of industrialism which has led to substantial economic inequity, racism, and shifting market needs (as well as the inability to adjust to those needs), all of which -- I would argue -- has a far stronger impact on poverty than whether someone knows how to put on a condom or not.
One might also consider the great state of MA, which has one of the highest concentrations -- if not the highest concentration -- of Catholics in the country. As we all know, contraceptions and abortions are illegal in the Catholic church. Based on your logic, MA should be one of the poorest states in the country. Clearly, it is not.
i really don't find the African model applicable to the American South, where education through grade 12 is available to all and there hasn't been a civil war in 140 years or so.
as for MA, well, as any American Catholic will tell you, contraception is 100% acceptable and encouraged and used, and no one really takes their marching orders from Rome in the way that many, say, Baptists will take their marching orders from Pastor Tim down the street.
and, finally, i agree with your history lesson. i'd also say it has much to do with the adherence to what is a very, very different understanding of what religion is and how it functions in society than someone in MA. what i am saying, and what this book that i was referencing was saying, is that there are certain cultural attitudes that increase and/or maintain poverty. one of these is the resistance to contraception -- not in a philosophical, Catholic sense, but in the lack of it's use by teenagers either through ignorance or impulsiveness or something else altogether -- and the resistance to abortion, and the urge to get married sooner rather than later (some of which is economic, other is a certain romance around traditional gender roles that doesn't hold in other states). there's no judgment here. it's striking that the Blue Staters (for lack of a better word) seem both economically and *culturally* more able to deal with the consequences of pre- and extra-marital sex than the Red Staters (for lack of a better word).
so it's not that southern girls get knocked up at 19, then get married, then have another baby, and then get divorced, and that's why there's more poverty in the south. rather, it's that there are certain entrenched cultural attitudes that aren't helping one little bit.
and what's true in the South is also true in Africa -- the best way to combat poverty, on the micro level, is to empower women to choose when they do and do not get pregnant. lower fertility rates go hand in hand with higher education.