Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

Entitlement is born of self-worth. Some kids have it naturally. Others must develop it against the proof of their experience.

Yet home ownership was key to accruing wealth. White American families would eventually amass a median net worth nearly ten times that of Black families. Put another way, the exclusion of African Americans from real estate—not to mention college, white-collar jobs, and the ability to vote—laid the foundations of a lasting poverty that Dasani would inherit.

This was a country, Supreme told Chanel, with an educational system, a government, a police force, and a job market that kept people of color trapped in “the false hope of an American Dream.” “It’s all a trick, not real,” he said. “It’s all been built up to destroy us systematically, on all levels….To empower others, at the expense of crushing the Black man, father, and husband—to render him totally ineffective and stagnant.”

Chanel broke the news to the children on a bench in Fort Greene Park. “Take care of each other,” she instructed her firstborn child. Dasani was silent. She did not know the details: the fact that her mother had relapsed or that ACS was now watching Supreme; that with one more mistake, the family could be dismantled; and that on top of everything, Chanel was pregnant again. All Dasani could hear was that her mother was leaving. Her parting words echoed for days: Take care of each other.

Most new students experience some kind of honeymoon. They have left behind the pangs of hunger, the sound of gunfire. In the absence of such threats comes a temporary peace. It is not coincidental that Dasani can think more clearly. There is no part of her body as critical to defeating poverty, or as vulnerable to its effects, as the brain.

Poor children tend to live with chronic stress. They have greater exposure to violence, hunger, sleep deprivation, and illness.

The school has aligned itself with the work of Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist known for pioneering the “growth mindset”—a theory that the brain is malleable; that a person can get smarter with effort, good strategies, and the help of mentors. Children commonly come to Hershey with the opposite view, which Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” They assume that intelligence is a preordained trait, as immutable as the color of one’s eyes.

Poverty is the proof of deficiencies, including an intellect that is “fixed.” Dweck’s research challenges this belief. She shows that when children think that their intellectual abilities can improve, they are more likely to work hard. And working hard allows the brain to “grow,” by strengthening its neural connections. If they labor over a math problem, even with frustration, their brains are getting “stronger,” says Dweck. This makes struggle a good thing—not a sign of stupidity but a path to intellect.

But the rupture of a family happens at a different pace. It only begins with the event itself—the afternoon of October 6, the seven children stepping into a van. Many months later, they are still pulling apart. Their separation is not fixed in time. It is less an event than a condition, festering without end.