Retrospective

The Things They Carry

Alex Kotlowitz

In Sheridan Bartlett's generous discussion of my book, she writes of the trial of Felicia Morgan, a 17-year-old who killed another teenager over a leather coat. Morgan's attorney argued that Morgan- because of her neighborhood's and family's violence- suffered from post-traumatic-stress disorder, and so should be absolved of responsibility for her crime.

There are, it seems, two matters here worth discussing: the effects of violence on children and the notion of responsibility. Let me tackle them in that order.

As I look back at the 12 years since There Are No Children Here was published, the one thing that still mystifies me is the persistent stubbornness of the violence. As I write this, Chicago's homicide rates are so astonishingly high that the mayor and the U.S. Attorney have called for extraordinary measures. I remember right after September 11 I thought that the violence in the city would decrease, but not at all. What's going on? And more to the point, what do we do about it?

The mayor and the U.S. Attorney have, not surprisingly, suggested a more vigorous law enforcement crackdown. I think there's another way to approach this: begin thinking of violence as a matter of public health. We've completely underestimated the effects of violence on the spiritual well-being of children. In our central cities, children are actively discouraged from talking about violence out of the fear that if they do, they'll somehow be held culpable for the crime. There's little counseling available to children. There is in fact a myth that somehow these children get hardened to the violence. They don't. How could they? They just learn to hold it inside.

In the children I've spent time with, I've seen the very same post-traumatic-stress disorder we saw in soldiers returning from combat in Vietnam: children who deal with conflict with aggression; children who are depressed; children who have flashbacks; children who are easily agitated, who appear hyperactive. (One elementary school principal told me that he could tell when the end of the school day approached because the children would become fidgety and anxious at having to leave the safe environs of the school.) I've seen children who have physical ailments. For example, one boy in my book suffered from regular stomach aches; another had a stutter which only worsened as the shooting became more frequent. The wounds- the psychic wounds- run deep, and we've done little to tend to them. These children, of course, grow up to become teenagers and then adults, troubled by what they have seen and heard, acting out often- and not surprisingly in violent ways. Somehow, we need to find a way to intervene in these children's lives, to offer succor and comfort, to help them deal with these wounds.

But here is where I differ with Felicia Morgan's attorney. Those of us who care, who are engaged in these issues, have done a poor job of talking about personal responsibility. The conservatives argue that people are poor because of the poor choices they have made. Of course that is not true, but by absolving people of personal responsibility we're handing this terrain to the conservatives. Absolving people of personal responsibility dehumanizes and devalues. Needless to say, those living in our central cities have been dehumanized and devalued enough.

It's a fine line to walk: acknowledging the ability of people to make the right and the wrong choices, while acknowledging the dearth of choices available. Where we really fall short, though, is in fully understanding the forces at work on the lives of those like Felicia Morgan- and then doing something to help keep those forces at bay.