Days of Siege (Camden) Paper

Julia Labbe

Dr. Klein

English

04 April 2018

Days of Siege

In the chapter “Days Of Siege”” Hedges and Sacco mention problems in Camden New Jersey that are still important and relevant in today's society. It brings up the issues of poverty, violence, and government. All of these issues affect Camden's community, because if you take one of these problems, it will lead to one of the other two and it is a vicious cycle that is hard to break. With no control or say in the government, these issues are hard to look at and take serious action against. With a little hope and help from each other in the community, Camden can start to slowly get out of the hole it is stuck in.

Poverty in Camden affects the whole community. Making the point of poverty in this chapter is to show how it affects individuals of Camden and show the type of lifestyle the people of Camden live when they are poor. The purpose is to explain why Camden is the way it is, because of how poverty can ruin a community. Because of the poverty in Camden, food was hard to provide for families, it caused a lot of anger, and left people unemployed. A story told by Lolly Davis explains just how hard food was to provide for her family. She explains how growing up poor and finding food was the hardest in the winter. Hedges and Sacco explain that in order for her family to have dinner “her father would travel to the Pocono Mountains to hunt pheasants, rabbits, groundhogs, and even bear” (Hedges, Sacco 104). Because of the poverty families face in Camden they can’t just go to a grocery store and pick up a bunch of food. They had to go out and find their own food. The poverty in Camden also lead to the feelings of anger. Father Doyle explain it like this; “Because you know that you're poor. You hear people my age get up and say, ‘We were poor. We put cardboard in our shoes.’ We talk like that. But we didn’t know we were poor. Today you do. And how do you know you're poor? Your television shows you that you’re poor. So it’s very easy to build up anger in a, say, a high-voltage kid of seventeen, and, he knows he’s poor, he looks at the TV, and ‘ All these people have everything and I have nothing.’”( Hedges, Sacco 110) Poverty didn’t just affect the adults, it also affected the children growing up. Growing up and seeing how this was how most people lived life, that this was the norm, it makes it hard for change to happen because this society is stuck on the idea that change cannot happen since this is how it has always been. Making the point of poverty in this chapter is to show how it affects individuals and the type of lifestyle the people of Camden live when they are poor.

Violence was also another problem that occured in the community of Camden. Violence is important to bring up in this chapter because the problem of poverty is why there is so much violence. The importance of bringing it up is to show how much violence actually happens in Camden, and its telling the readers how violence can affect anyone in Camden, and there's very little being done in order to solve this problem. This violence mostly occur from drug deals, and home invasions. When violence occurs, it just starts more violence and that is why there is so much violence in Camden. A man named Miguel Benito’s home was robbed while he was at home with his family  and the robbers took all of their money, their cell phones, and Miguel’s car. Having all of that was very rare in Camden. His story was significant because he was a latino male, and he was an undocumented worker who did not have a bank account, but kept his cash in his home which made him an easy target. Hedges and Sacco point out that Camden is divided between the prey and the predators and that “the weaker you are, the less money and legal status you have, the more the predators hover like vultures” (Hedges, Sacco 77) So the poorer you were, the more of a target you were, which could mean anyone is a target in Camden. Violence like this has been in Camden forever, and has become a culture of violence. People are stuck with how to handle these situations and since there is no answer the violence just continues on.

Another problem Camden faces within their community is corruption in the government. This is an important part of the chapter, because Camden is being run by a man who isn’t even from Camden, but with money comes power, and Norcross happens to have a ton of both. Camden is being affected by this government issue because they don’t have a voice in anything, and they are trapped because of Norcross. In Camdens government the mayor doesn’t have any real power. Camden’s city budget is controlled by a state appointed official, and “a shady bureaucracy”( Hedges, Sacco 95). A bigger problem with the government is that a man named Norcross, who is a multimillionaire and doesn’t even live in the cit or hold elective office, has all of the power over Camden. The mayor explains the reason he may have all of this power is because of “his cleverness and his money, There are no jobs, and probably it is due in part to the education system. People need help. He has been successful in overpowering people who have needs and controlling them.” (Hedges, Sacco 95) The citizens of Camden are trapped, and since they have no control and very little power, they don’t try to fight back because they are concerned of what Norcross could do. So they end up stuck.

Camden is a place where the community needs some answers, some help. Poverty, violence, and government corruption is a vicious cycle that the people of Camden are stuck in. Poverty affects most everyone who lives there, the poverty causes anger which causes violence, and because violence starts violence that is why it is such a problem in Camden, and lastly the government is not with the people of Camden. It is fighting against them and because of this Camdens citizens are trapped and feel as though things will not go up from here, they will stay the same. If the people of Camden can come together and start to encourage each other by helping each other than there is hope for Camden that it can get out of the hole that it is trapped in.