It’s been nearly 60 years since Mac Davis wrote the song “In The Ghetto,” just as LBJ’s “Great Society” was seeking to address poverty, crime and violence. It became a huge hit for Elvis Presley in 1969. The lyrics are so instructive — but surely not in the way Mac and Elvis intended:
“As the snow flies / On a cold and gray Chicago morn / A poor little baby child is born / In the ghetto (In the ghetto).
“And his mama cries / ‘Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need / It is another hungry mouth to feed / In the ghetto (In the ghetto).
“People, don’t you understand / The child needs a helping hand / Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day / Take a look at you and me / Are we too blind to see?”
After 60 years, there’s so much more of this circular violence going on than in the 1960s it boggles the mind, especially since it has occurred generation after generation, despite the hundreds of billions spent to defeat the very poverty cited in the song.
Perhaps Mac should have written about fatherlessness instead? Nowadays mothers without husbands receive higher payments, perversely making bastard children into economic benefits. Hunger is likewise largely a thing of the past, now replaced by downscale obesity. But the theft and murder and heartlessness have only skyrocketed, hope has been replaced with cynicism and grievance and entitlement, and urban Chicago remains a deathtrap — all enabled by the well-meant-but-crippling condescension of folks like Mac and Elvis.
Rest in peace, sirs. Ironically your sentiments have only brought us more of the opposite.
Rob Kerchner
Valencia
