As a child on the white side of town, I grew up believing that with willpower, one could overcome any circumstance. This is America, where people succeed or fail based on individual effort. And yet as I sat on Leroy’s front porch, and as I met Dartanyon’s extended family, I was struck by how hardship engulfed multiple generations of families. Nearly everyone I met was some combination of uneducated, unemployed, poor, tired, and drug-addicted.
