The children of “dirty Prods” and “filthy Fenians” carry messages, set fires, use guns and knives. But sometimes they speak with the startlingly premature wisdom of those who have seen people fight and die for what they believe.
They have more—more toys, more clothes, more lessons, more privacy, more travel—but are wealthy children really any different from their less fortunate counterparts? Yes, they are, says a noted child psychiatrist, who for the past twenty years has studied American children of every social class. Here is his report on the inner life of the privileged young.
To some they’re “the Mexicans,” to others they’re “the pickers”; they often call themselves “Chicanes,” and they are also Texans mostly poor and abused ones.
How do ghetto Negroes look at the white world outside their decaying neighborhoods? And how do they explain or respond to the spontaneous violence and destructiveness of slum rioting? A partial answer comes from Dr. Robert Coles.
