The "Discovery" of Generation X

. . Even twentysomething is a myopic time bomb of a word--it makes it sound like everybody'll trip up kicked out of the club when they get too old (Giles 64).

This times is being shaped by certain forces in society, however, though the individual members atomic number 18 not all reacting in the equal modal value as the name might imply they atomic number 18. The main(a) force imposing on this group today is decrease expectations--the economic structure of the country is such that this multiplication believes it give not live as good a demote as did the previous generation. The business public is changing. in that respect is no long-term duty security such as there used to be. College degrees are no longer the assurances of a job that they were once. Competition is much more fierce for the opportunities that do exist.

This is a generation that has grown up in a world of increasing uncertainty on a variety of levels. mend they may have lose the tensions of the Vietnam War, they have not missed the consequences of that war, of the oil crisis of the early 1970s and its aftermath, and of the Iranian hostage crisis which do America less sure of itself in the world. This generation lived by dint of the end of the Cold War, but to date it has take ton little conduct benefit from that event. The perception is that opportunity is lessening, not increasing, and this generation knows it give have to cope with a future that may be more difficult than the one their parents promised them.

In this milieu, family is the one bond that seems to have real meaning, and these cardinal buddys exemplify this in poignant ways. Lafayette worries about his childlyer brother and watches over him, stating that he worries about him:

Alex Kotlowitz in his book There Are No Children Here tells the story of two brothers aliment at Henry Horner Homes, a housing project in Chicago. The title of the book becomes clear as it progresses--the young commonwealth living in these projects have had their childishness taken from them. They are older than their years, exposed to all the ills of our society in a direct and concentrated form.

Poverty produces a particular way of looking at life, a mode that perpetuates poverty from generation to generation as the poor lose hope and see their plight as permanent. Added to this is the danger from drugs, gangs, streetcrime, discrimination, and other social ills which are visited disproportionately on the poorest in our society.

Kotlowitz shows how the social problems of the time obvious themselves in this world and how deadening they are to the people who have to live there. Drugs are rampant, contributing not only to problems encountered by users but also to the pervasive criminality surrounding residents and to the effect often accompanying that crime. The schools are inadequate to cope with their care in the first place, and the problem becomes nearly impossible with the ferment of drugs, gangs, and violent behavior. None of these problems stop at the schoolhouse door, and no(prenominal) stop once these young boys get home. Instead, they live in fear of the outside world, a world they cannot control and that is often openly hostile to them. The picture that emerges is of a world where young people barely survive, and if they do, they do so while losing their childhood forever.

The boys, Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, live in the midst of a war regularise where gangs battle for territory and for the right to sell drugs. The horror
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