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Title
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Seeds of Discontent, episode 4 (subculture of poverty, medical care and Southern white families)
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Description
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This episode, the second of three exploring the subculture of poverty in United States, focuses on medical care and the experiences of Southern white families.
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Creator
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Hartford Smith, Jr.
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Date
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1968
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Publisher
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Originally distributed by WDET in Detroit, Michigan; made available in digitally archived format as part of the Unlocking the Airwaves project, a digital humanities initiative from University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched in 2021.
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Subject
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Seeds of Discontent was a 1968 radio documentary series that explored discontented social groups and organizations attempting to improve their conditions in American society. Created by Hartford Smith, Jr. and Wayne State University’s WDET in Detroit, the series addressed topics including race relations, civil rights, poverty, youth, and crime.
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Type
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Sound
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Transcription
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This is the fourth in a series of programs entitled the Seeds of Discontent. Here to present the program is Hartford Smith, Jr., Supervisor of the screening and intake unit maintained by the Michigan department of social services, delinquency rehabilitation programs, Mr. Smith. Speaker 1 Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome again, to Seeds of Discontent. Tonight, we continue our examination of the subculture of poverty. On last week's program, it was pointed out by your narrator and by the voices of poor urban Negroes, how our basic systems for meeting human needs and basic survival areas, such as shelter, food, and clothing, and recreation leads to complications and consequences and others, social endeavors, such as school and work school and work our society's formula for overcoming the suffering implicit in being poor in a world of plenty. Yet, even here, the poor are shortchanged. Take the average school in a given low economic or depressed area of any large American city. You'll find that teaching techniques, textbooks and other teaching aids are largely outdated and obsolete. The large amount of new exciting developments in the use of electronic equipment, color schemes and games seldom find its way into ghetto schools. Speaker 1 If a large number of ghetto kids started out with two strikes against them because of the economic plight of the family school very often becomes a third strike against their ever escaping. Is it any wonder then that within the last three years in Detroit and other similar urban areas, we have witnessed rebellions in Detroit. We've seen at least two rebellions at major schools and a near rebellion at another. There is an even more treacherous quality about being poor in America. Let's look back again at the basics of shelter, food, clothing, and recreation, poor housing, poor food, like a recreation and living in congested areas has a profound effect on the human body. The body is exposed and sometimes gives in to various types of illnesses. Medical care then becomes quite necessary without medical care. The human body erodes becomes nonproductive and in a large number of cases eventually dies without adequate medical care. Speaker 1 The motivational level, and the ability to perform is lowered. The meaning of this in relation to our competitive world should be fairly obvious. Medical care then becomes a necessary item. If one is to survive large numbers of the poor because of limited income and because of paying more for other basic need items cannot afford a private medical doctor. They usually have to go to a large metropolitan hospital in the central areas of the city and to various emergency divisions of hospitals. Let's take a look at some of the problems faced by the poor and obtaining medical. Speaker 7 I am of the age of 19. Now I had this hospital hot from the eighties thing. Not when I'm sick, I can take it down and get treatments. And I was sick one day and I took it down and they tells me I have to bring my mother and I on the ADC. And they say that it's okay if I'm on the ADC by myself, but they're still saying I have to bring my mother. Then another time I had pneumonia and they, they don't examine you. They sit up and they talk all the time. And it's about 10 or 15 doctors that come in and see you. I went into the hospital at four and I didn't get upstairs. This was four in the evening. I didn't get upstairs until four, five o'clock in the morning. And when I got in a bed, five more came in and sat with me and it wasn't different examined. It was the same thing. And then again, they did not call my mother to get an okay to give me a spinal tap, which I didn't even know. I just went on and got it because I was too ill. He would say, no, I want to rest at the time. But they did not question or call my mother for that. And I was very ill after that, went back 12 with the spinal tap. Speaker 3 How did the doctors at these various hospitals really treat you as a, as a human being? What, what, what do you think about that? Speaker 6 Well, I think, uh, they he'll lay there. They just, haven't been taking time. As you, as a human being, they, uh, just touch you here. As my daughter was very, very ill. I took her to the hospital. The doctor didn't ballad, touch her and he says, well, she house female trouble. Take her home. She can stay there. And as she gets worse and worse, I take her to Detroit tomorrow and an ambulance. She was so sick. She had swollen up last, had turned black and he wants to ask a lot of questions about something that wasn't even in the book. And, uh, well, I'll take her home. She can stay there. And on the next morning she had swollen up. So, and was screaming. When I got her in and out in the hospital, he says her penance has affected her right away, that there just wasn't time to save a life. And I think this should something be done about it. It shouldn't take time. Example a person if they're sick. Speaker 3 All right. And this is how long would you say it took you from the time that you got started on this to the time that you really got the medical services Speaker 6 From Wednesday evening. And she came home sick from phone work. She came home on Wednesday. I took her to a private doctor on Thursday. I stayed home with on Friday. I took her to hopper on Saturday. I took her to Deidre on tomorrow and it was on Sunday at one o'clock before I got in attention for her. And appendix had the ruptured in her. Well, sometime that's on the morning before I got her to the hospital. I think she re-upped it on the way, because that's when she passed off. Speaker 3 I mean, something else now we've frequently heard that. And even when you go to say, if you have an appointment that you frequently have to wait long hours, usually how long would you estimate you have to wait just to get in, to see a doc, Speaker 7 I would say about six hours or even more, six to 10 hours. This is the useful time for this. And even with medicine, sometime it takes this long for you to wait. And then again, uh, w if you come in, like if you come in in the morning, when it's hardly nobody there, uh, you get one doctor and you have to wait four hours. I actually waited four hours for a doctor to come downstairs. They said the doctor was upstairs. She called me in and put me in a bed. I still had to wait four hours. I slept and everything before the doctor came in. And which at this time this doctor did tell me, he actually told me what was wrong, what I had to do. But I mean, any other time, it will give you medicine. And that's it. They'll tell you on the bottle, take it three times a day. And that's all, I mean, it's no, um, no, no, can't, they won't even tell you what it is. They won't even tell you how you got it. So if it happened again, you know, you can do something about it. Speaker 3 I feel they just don't really take time to talk with you to, to really confine and tell you what you can do. Speaker 7 This is why this is true. They don't, I mean, this is something that needs to be done because they are present. They're adopted. They know, we don't know. And if they can't tell us, this is helping us to not just the medicine we need, we need to know what's going on before then. So if it happened again, we know how to stop it before it gets out of hand. Speaker 3 Um, more and more you talk, I get something here in a way of what you feel, the way the doctor looks at you as a person, aside from his, just checking you briefly. Uh, how do you think the doctor treating you really looked at you as, as a person? Speaker 6 Well, now they got so many of these fun doctors. And when you go, I mean, they don't wait it down here. And I figured they figured that you have to depend on special that use color, then have to go to these hospitals to liaison gotten. So they just looks at you and sit over. And sometime they talks to each other and smiles at each other. He has, if you was a cat over in the corner or something, and this is getting worse and worse. And most of the, all of these man hospitals around with a poor person goes through that is what they are doing. This Speaker 7 Is actually at the time they're, they're talking and grinning and laughing about your problem. It should be told to me, not to the other doctor. I mean, I should know what's wrong with me, you know, and they'll sit up and, you know, even they won't even tell my mother, so, you know, how can I help myself if they can't tell me what's wrong with me? And Hong can, you know, I can, uh, protect myself next time if it does happen, Speaker 3 What kind of, I would imagine now, um, there are 10 children and your family. Now you have to go down there and stay all day. What, what do you do in the way of getting help for, for babysitting or this time? Well, how do you use the work? This out? Speaker 6 Someone has to stay from school. That's the honest thing. And there's the buyer. They don't have a nursery day, like, uh, with my two older kids, they had any time of day, you drop in with them. You could just leave them, you know? And if the jobs and the thing, you could pay them off, but I was used gone, but not only, you just simply got to keep someone away from school and all of them is to go to the hospital. Speaker 3 I see. So you really have to pull one of your own kids out to watch the other kids in the hospital Speaker 6 All day. And if you get yourself a third appointment down there, it was a doctors do not walk in until 10, 10 30. I mean, you don't see nobody. And then that stock then, well, by one o'clock about 1230, it's gone on for their lunch and you just sitting, and this is nothing they should say, well, uh, the doctor's gone for lunch and, uh, all of you have, uh, say twenty-five minutes and, uh, be back or you have 25 minutes and get back. But no, they don't tell anybody anything. The doctors just walk out and if you get up and go, well, then you might go, but you may stay there. So if they call you and then you get so hung and tag, you will go, then they'll call. Then when they come back, they'll call your name. And then if you, not that it puts you on the bottom list of the hospital. I don't think this right. She'll have a sister at lunchtime. They say, well, 25 minutes or 30 minutes, and everybody go about the business, get back. So they'll be there. When the dogs you get home, when you got feelings, you know, cat sitting out in the hall all day, not, this is something I don't think, I think they should do something. Speaker 9 C C actually. I mean, I've been, um, I have been in a wheelchair now for about, uh, going on 12 years. I have no way of getting a medical, uh, treatment on the only way that I can get it is through receiving hospital. And, um, uh, I would say that, uh, it is very, very hard to even, um, uh, get this, uh, treatment then AF I mean, once that you get there, uh, which, uh, my son's has, has, has, uh, pushed me to, to this place on, on a couple of locations and, uh, say, I'd get in certain time in the morning and in the afternoon, or maybe at night, a lot of times, therefore I leave me gusta and people lay around in the hallway at receiving and just look like they were overlooked. Speaker 3 Do you feel real long waiting period? You indicates you leave sometimes early in the morning and late at night before you get back, Speaker 9 That is a right and go down at six o'clock in the morning, and it'd be 7 30, 8, 9 at night before you can get out of there. Speaker 3 What, what happens to your kids in the meantime? Speaker 9 Uh, I, I have been told, uh, uh, at receiving, uh, when they asked to who would come, come with me, I said, uh, well, my own children, I may be one of my children. And, um, and they, they would tell him that. And I said, well, you'll have to go back home. I mean, you can't, can't wait in the waiting room. Speaker 3 So what's happened to her kids, Speaker 9 Uh, well doing during the time time that they leave, um, uh, coming back home. I mean, I don't know until I get home. Speaker 3 Did they have any real problems around waiting long periods of time? Uh, anything of this nature when you have to go to the hospital? Speaker 4 No. I'm the one, one a hospital. That's the Detroit general. Now you don't have to wait your time nine. Now, Speaker 3 How long would you say Speaker 4 You like to go down there? It's eight o'clock and don't get out of down till one, two, and then something sometime you don't get out there. Then I know when I will put it down now, live here early that morning. When I got back here before clock, Speaker 3 I don't know how do the doctors and the people running a hospital usually treat you? I mean, just to one human being to another, Speaker 4 Well, the doctors, I think it, uh, Detroit Joelyn hospital down there that's that hospital was pushed more than in a hospital. I believe in the city because there's more people's transfers down and they just don't have enough doctor, neither aren't enough nurses to get to the people it's just in that Speaker 3 You had something more, you wanted to say about medical services. Speaker 7 Yes. I was getting my tea. Townes was taken out and the nurse came in. She gave it's supposed to be a drug that they supposed to be giving me. She shot me and math. She shot me. They took me to the operating room. I set up in a chair for about a half an hour because I'm wide or woke. And this stuff hadn't, you know, stopped working on me yet and taking all this pain, getting my, both of my towels was taken out. And this, this medicine didn't affect me until afterwards. And the doctor I'm telling him I'm still a walk and you know, and he's still telling me be quiet and you're not and so forth. And this is a hurting thing. And this is one thing that I really disagree about the nurses and they don't, they don't have these things. Um, you know, they just throw you in and period and drop you just like this. And the nurses talk very crudely to you. They'll tell you, you know, um, um, so you may, so this way you got to be a dump and it puts you, Ron is shopping around and once in a while, this is why it's so many Feinstein are receiving that I don't believe anybody hear about. Speaker 1 I see no point in editorializing on the comments made they speak for themselves. I would merely add that again, in terms of trying to satisfy a basic need, such as medical care, the poor pay a high price in terms of money, time, energy, absorbing anger, frustration, and finally degradation our voices thus far have been those of the new Negro poor and most large urban centers. There are also large pockets of poor Southern whites. Who've been attracted by the possibility of better jobs. During the past week, we attempted to interview a large number of these families in order to get some idea about the problems that they've faced most were reluctant to talk and felt insulted that someone would ask them to talk about their problems most live together in small overcrowded apartment buildings. In some places, there were large holes in the walls and garbage cluttered hallways, kids crawled and played in any vacant space. Speaker 1 Available noise, went through apartments as if wallpaper was the only partition between units yet, nothing was wrong. It was almost as if they were saying, look, my white skin says that I am our right. It seemed to be a defense against the realization that they were on rock bottom. It was almost as if they were trying to duplicate the social order of their Homeland. I found one gentleman who was able to provide some insights into the problems of this alienated social group. There are similarities in spite of the historical, as well as present day tensions between the two groups. This tension sometimes spills over into conflict and violence in large metropolitan regions. What about the housing situation in Detroit? Speaker 9 I a problem, and they just really need to, they, ain't just not building the fast enough to put people in it to take care of the problem. I agreed. Speaker 3 Yeah. If you got kids very difficult, what is something that kinds of problems if you run into say, when you're looking for a house and Speaker 9 Yeah, I stopped locked. Now, if I say Speaker 3 So they won't rent to now, how much would you estimate that, uh, that, uh, old landlords that you've dealt with charged you for rent? Do you feel that fair price? Uh, did he try to keep the property up or was Speaker 9 Kind of a little one that category? Yeah. They want to kill you high rent and, uh, they won't do nothing to that property. Speaker 3 How much would you just estimate the kind of rent they charge you? Oh, say for our house house, that's adequate to room all of your family and see how many children do you have at the present time? Speaker 9 Say Speaker 3 Seven. Now say if you decide to move all, you'd almost have to have what, five bedrooms, four bedrooms. What would you estimate? They charge you for a house or that nature? Speaker 9 120, a hundred. Speaker 3 Um, does that include utilities? No. No, Speaker 9 I'd be, I'd be going to, uh, furnish, gage and leg to, Speaker 3 How much would you estimate that run for a year? In addition to that? What'd you have to pay, I mean, Speaker 9 third down third here. Both. Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah. $60 a month. Gee, that seems rather high, huh? Speaker 9 Yeah, it is. Yeah. yeah. I can buy a place keeper cheaper right now on my pay. Um, buy a plate keeper, and then I'm paying rent. Yeah. Speaker 3 Have you ever, uh, what's been your dealings with the landlord, say if he needed repairs I'm crime, has he been not necessarily about this particular house, but any other houses you've lived Speaker 9 Not prompt at all. do that. Edward Edward and the same, same problem. I either do nothing to the house. You used to work yourself and you know, they get it to free free work and everything. Speaker 3 Well, they let you deduct this from the rent. If you do the word, Speaker 9 No, just to pay for the pain or something like that. And you do the work free of charge. Speaker 3 How many times would you estimate, uh, you moved since you, um, since you lived in Detroit? Uh, Speaker 9 Uh, I'd say, uh, about five times, Speaker 3 We're all concerned about, uh, children, certainly. And, uh, what's been some of your experiences, uh, in terms of how our city, uh, looks after children and provides them with things to do in the neighborhoods that you've lived in. Speaker 9 I read in my room and I'll never room for the kids to go around. I really not. too many kids with one Speaker 11 As a park, but there's the too, there's too much going into the park till you get that to get Speaker 3 Married. There are a lot of problems around me Speaker 11 As a park right here close, but I don't take the kids that I have because it's too much confusion. People have drinks, mocha. They spent no tails out of the park. I see. Yeah. I just don't want to take my kid time. Speaker 3 Can you just tell me maybe a little bit about, uh, some of the experiences of some of your friends and maybe trying to find work since, uh, since they've come here from, uh, from your home state? I believe her home state was Tennessee. Was that Speaker 9 Right? Yeah. Speaker 3 Tell me some of their experiences, maybe some that you knew real well. Speaker 9 Well, I know a couple of, you know, what it needs, you need the job, but they really can't give a job because they got no educated. He can even fill out an application, you know? And, uh, I took him two or three places to fill out a few applications. And now you still ain't got a job yet, but you know, but to really what you need is a training program, but a month for him to learn, uh, learn skill, you know, the caveat, right? Speaker 3 Yeah. So really, uh, these man men would have a difficult time supporting their families. Then Speaker 9 I have a difficult time. They can't even give a job, you know, keep, give a job. But because they, they shamed, you go anywhere. When you have to get an application, you know, to keep pivoting down, keep in the back, you got to take somebody's pill application for him, you know, that's kind of Speaker 9 You know, Tom Speaker 3 And the family's got to live. Speaker 9 Yeah. Got to live with none. No, we've live. Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah. These gentlemen still trying to stick around and find something here in the city, or do you think they'll go on back home? Speaker 9 Uh, they will stick around again and just be drowned to me, gets up. He, so kind of work where you did a thing, you know, normally enough money to take care of that at all. You know, what does he do the best he can, you know, educate. And then we got, Speaker 3 Do you know of any of your friends who, who came up and gave it a try and maybe just got discouraged and went back? Yeah. Speaker 9 come up and stay a while and they go back to home and you keep paying nothing down there. I don't make any money at all down there. Ain't no, he got discouraged and took home back home, sat down there and work on the phone. Speaker 3 I see. Let's see. Then, uh, then you and, um, most of your friends and let me just get some of the reasons, I think you're mentioning one now, um, for, uh, the coming to Detroit in the first place, you know, that they were looking for a better job, maybe. Speaker 9 Yeah. The diligent for a better young man, Speaker 3 Most of these friends of yours, however, it didn't have any particular kind of trade though. Yeah, Speaker 9 No, no, no. They didn't have no trade though. No education either. You know, Speaker 3 What was the kind of work that they, they had been doing mostly, Speaker 9 Uh, this farming, mainly working on the farm. Speaker 3 You get the feeling sometimes that, uh, that you're just kind of crowded. And perhaps that Speaker 9 I know you tightened in yard grass. Yeah. Black bind this guide name, man, Speaker 1 Large numbers of the urban poor, both black and white are refugees from the south. The reason for their leaving are rooted in the bloodstain. The history of the south, this bloodstain history itself must be understood in the light of the economic patterns of the south. In relation to the basic needs of people in a changing industrialized world, the resultant hardship and degradation literally forced millions of citizens to leave their Homeland in search of better living conditions, Northern regions of the country and tent on billing, large empires and wealth encourage this massive ship than population yet fail to supply systems that would allow basic survival needs to be met in a fashion that would also allow for social growth and skills needed to cope with the forces, pitfalls, and complications of a technologically driven society. It would be unfair to say that this country has made no attempt to solve some of these problems, but the sheer size and dimensions of the problem today suggests that to a large extent, we have failed millions of citizens then must turn to welfare systems in order to survive. Next week, we shall attempt to pro further through the medium of the voices of the poor on various types of welfare. We will attempt to get at their feelings and attitudes about welfare systems and what needs to be done in the future. We will also attempt to interview a segment of the Mexican-American population who are also victimized by conditions of poverty, more so than any other ethnic group there's is a history of movement back and forth across America in search of better conditions. Speaker 0 The program was produced by Dave Lewis for a WDET radio Wayne State University, David Pierce engineer. This is Wayne State University radio.