Geoffrey Canada illustrates the urban America’s culture of violence by proving that children learn violence because of the environment they grew up in. The economic status that Canada and his family were living in prevented them from living in a safer neighborhood. Canada grew up

in various small apartments in the Bronx with his mother and three brothers. Growing up in the urban ghetto, Canada, at such a young age recognized the subterranean evilness that existed when someone robbed his brother’s ten dollars in their new apartment. Geoffrey gained conscious of the possibility that he can be robbed at any given time and learned that no one was going to “come to a standstill because of our personal loss”. Due to environmental determinism, Canada went through incidences such as these and became psychologically prepared for other possible hostile scenarios.

Along with the personal experiences, parenting practices played a major role in the development of the violent characteristics in children. Parents were not always present in children’s lives according to Canada because they were “working for slave wages” and were barley able to keep a roof over the children’s heads. Canada blames many parents for the violent acts preformed by children. During his professional career, Canada counseled children who faced a catch 22 where parents wanted their children to fight back or else they would be face with severe consequences at home. Parents allowed their children to bring weapons to school for protection, therefore, bringing in more possibilities for violence. Having parent feel that, “this is a violent world, so teach them [children] to cope by acting more violently than others”. Apathetic statements such as those teach us that children did not deliberately carry around weapons for their own satisfaction.

Canada claims that “violence is a learned response…” because he studied s

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