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Volume 10 Issue 18…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…May
4, 2007
Intuit's
Vibe
Blaming Poverty on the Poor
Josephine Dixon-Banks
Give us your deprived,
your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar
industry, Poverty
A.K.A., cheapest labor force
Poverty works, never ever unemployed
A much needed commodity to justify
White-collar crime classes
Teaching dastardly deeds--
to procure monetary needs-
fostering avarice greed
Give us your deprived,
your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar
industry, Poverty
A.K.A., cheapest labor force
Poverty creates jobs for those
financing the societal
Institution of ya godda pay more taxes
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Look! what Enron did to those less fortunate
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Did not corporations
want a billion dollar welfare check
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Give us your deprived,
your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar
industry, Poverty
A.K.A., cheapest labor force
No penance just punishment
augmenting the pillar of economic
pillaging
Poor people put in the pillory from the
political pulpit
Poverty is prime property
Poverty pimps portrayed
as political preachers purely punitive
but polite
The pluralization of Poverty
provides prestige of the patricians
Poverty, the promissory note from the
bureaucratic infidel
The Truth will tell--the truth will
tell
Poverty the patriotic prisoner on trial
for treason
Record US Poverty
Filled with contradictions, the US economy, based on official statistics,
enjoys low unemployment, interest and inflation rates, high worker productivity
and a booming stock market. On the other side of the ledger, consumer debt is
at an all-time high. And, while corporate profit as a share of national income
has grown significantly over the last five years, real wages have declined over
the same period.
According to the Current Population Survey's 2006 Annual Social and Economic
Supplement (ASEC), which is based on calendar year 2005 conditions, the
official poverty rate stood at 12.6 percent. This percentage represents
approximately 37 million people. Along ethnic lines, poverty rates remained
statistically unchanged for blacks (24.9 percent) and Hispanics (21.8 percent)
between 2004 and 2005. For non-Hispanic whites, the poverty rate actually
decreased to 8.3 percent (2005) from 8.7 percent (2004).
Deep poverty is defined as a family of four with two children earning less than
$9,903 or half the federal poverty level. From 2000 to 2005, the number of
severely poor grew by 26 percent. Those living in deep poverty represent 43
percent or nearly 16 million of the nation's poor.
Poor People's Campaign (1968)
The curse of poverty has no
justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of
cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they
had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant
animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the
total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty. - Martin Luther
King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
In November 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) staff met to discuss the direction of the civil
rights movement. With passage of civil rights legislation, the emergence of
Black Power and urban riots the previous summer, SCLC decided to launch phase
two of the struggle. Dubbed the Poor People's Campaign, the SCLC leadership
hoped through non-violent direct action to focus national attention on economic
inequality and poverty, problems identified during the struggle to end
segregation.
Specifically, the campaign promoted an "economic bill of rights,"
requesting a $30 billion anti-poverty package that included a commitment to
full employment, a guaranteed annual income measure, increased construction of
low-income housing, quality education for all Americans, decent medical and
dental plans and abolition of discrimination against any group in the criminal
justice system. In addition, the campaign aimed to address poverty as a people
problem, because poverty is color blind; all sorts of ethnic groups, including
Native Americans, Hispanics, Chinese Americans and Chicanos, joined the
campaign.
On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee during the sanitation
workers' strike. The SCLC leadership decided to proceed with the campaign. The
Poor People's Campaign consisted of three phases. The first started with people
coming to Washington DC to rally and speak about issues daily and the erection
of a shanty town called Resurrection City, where protestors pledged to stay
until their demands were fulfilled. The second phase entailed mass arrests
throughout the capital. The final third phase called for a nationwide boycott
of US corporations.
On May 2, convoys from different sections of the country begin the journey to
the nation's capital; they picked up demonstrators along the way. On May 11,
1968, the first wave of demonstrators arrived in Washington, D.C. One week
later, Resurrection City was built on the Washington Mall. Erected on a
sixteen-acre site near the Lincoln Monument, the settlement of tents and shacks
housed protesters and demonstrators that were sent out daily to lobby various
federal agencies and nonviolently protest in spreading the campaign's message.
Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy assumed the SCLC presidency following Dr. King's death.
His leadership lacked the momentum and charisma King might have provided. The
combination of bad press, Robert Kennedy's assassination, and an unmanageable
number of protesters limited the campaign's effectiveness. Failing to make an
impact on the nation's economic policies, the Poor People's Campaign closed
camp on June 19, 1968. Sources: www.aaregistry.com,
http://freewebs.com/ethnicstudies/index5.html,
www.stanford.edu)
2007 State of Black America (SOBA)
One of the nation's oldest black civil rights organizations, the National Urban
League (NUL) has published an annual report called the State of Black America
(SOBA) since 1973. According to its 2007 executive summary, the report serves
as 'a barometer of conditions in the black community.'
Since 2004, the report includes an equality index that provides a statistical
measurement of the disparities that exist between black and white Americans
across five categories, i.e., economics, education, health, civic engagement
and social justice. For 2007, the equality index rose to 73.3, up three-tenths
of one percent above the 73 posted for 2006. Not surprisingly, of the five
categories that comprise this index, blacks fared worst in economics, which
stood at 57 percent. Ironically, this is close to the 3/5 Compromise value of
black human capital mandated by the US Constitution.
This year's report focused on the black man. The statistics are sobering. In
general, black males are twice as likely as their white male counterpart to be
unemployed, earn only 75 percent as much as white men, are nearly seven times
more likely to be incarcerated and serve jail sentences that average 10 months
longer than those of white men. Furthermore, black men are more likely to die
of homicide, dropout of school, live in poverty, etc., than their white
counterparts.
The 2007 State of Black America offers a number of solutions to address these
disparities. These include universal early childhood education, greater
experimentation with all-male schools, more second chance programs for high
school dropouts and ex-offenders, restoration of the federal summer jobs
program and programs that drive home the message that education pays dividends.
For more about the report's statistics and solutions, visit the NUL website at www.nul.org.
By John Burl Smith
The National Urban League annual report on the State of Black America (SOBA)
focused on black males, who are at the bottom of every positive category
compared to whites. SOBA rehashes data that have shown the same disparities
since the US started keeping such socioeconomic and political statistics during
the 1940s. While a useful exercise, SOBA does not go to the heart of the
reasons why or explain how such disparities still exist 134 years after the
Emancipation Proclamation (1863).
The why was answered by economist Dot M. Smith in a study published back in
1982 in the Mid-South Journal of Economics (Vol. 6 No 3). Accordingly, the
Urban League's report shies away from charging the US government with
institutionalized racism. Although replicating Smith's statistics, the SOBA
does not address her conclusions. Examining similar economic measures-- annual
income and unemployment rates --both studies show a relatively consistent gap.
However, Smith goes one step further by pointing to the 3/5 Compromise of
Article I Section II of the US Constitution as the determining factor. Smith
establishes conclusively that the relative income disparities between blacks
and whites are the same today as they were at the end of the Civil War. In
other words, economic slavery never ended.
The Founding Fathers constitutionally established black human capital at 3/5 of
white men in 1789. Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor passage of the 13th,
14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution changed
the value assigned slaves nor their descendants, because these measures neither
repealed this value nor abolished the institutions established to maintain it.
As
a matter of fact, the earliest statistics on unemployment published in 1948
show the white rate was 3.5%, while the black rate was 5.9%. Even during the
highest period of unemployment on record (1975), the rate for whites never rose
above 7.8%. Conversely, that same year, the unemployment rate for slave
descendants stood at 13.9%. Consequently, Smith's research revealed that the
black unemployment, in good and bad economic times, averaged 2.1 times the rate
of whites.
Medium
family incomes show similar disparities going back to the first year on record.
In 1947, whites had a median family income of $6,970, while blacks earned
$3,563. As late as 1980, the white median family income was $21,904; blacks
earned $13,843 or roughly 60% of what whites earned. Historically, the black to
white median family income ratio has fluctuated along the narrow band of .5 to
.65. Smith called this gap the chasm of inequality.
The sobering truth is that the existence of the 3/5 Compromise, which for
blacks equals 60 percent of what whites receive, supports slaves descendants'
charge of institutionalized racism. The gap the Urban League's SOBA measured
reflects the slavery codified in the US Constitution and the discrimination
that resulted has been supported by the full faith and credit of the US
government.
It is good that the SOBA concentrated on black males, but what it lacked is the
why. The real challenge, as Smith showed, is to establish the connection
between disparities found to the 3/5 Compromise. Merely providing statistics
that inform the world that such disparities exist has little relevance, if they
are not connected to some systemic cause- institutionalized racism. Otherwise,
such a report only tells us what we already know, and one which whites will
view as either accidental or natural occurrences.
The constant and stable gap Smith found rules out 134 years of accidental
discrimination. Moreover, if such a result occurred naturally, it would indicate
blacks are inferior to whites. To the contrary, Smith's data identified a trend
line that is a best fit for the 3/5 Compromise of the US Constitution,
empirically showing the discrimination and disparate treatment slave
descendants experience in the US are systemic. Taken together, the SOBA and
Smith studies show that institutionalized racism -- 3/5 Compromise -- is the
mechanism that has been used to maintain slave descendants in socioeconomic and
political slavery. Sobering isn't it?!
Disgruntled
says: Any society that allows poverty to be
concentrated among particular racial or ethnic groups pays in the long run with
rising crime and its attendant social economic and political problems. People
do not willingly do without, when there are alternatives, even when the only
options available mean breaking the law. They will rob, steal and kill.
Initially, the desperate will prey on those in their immediate community.
However, in time, they will climb the fences of gated communities and remove
concrete barriers to prey on the more affluent. No amount of private security
will render the haves completely apart and safe from the crime brought on by
poverty and the instinct for survival.
Disgruntled
feels: Shocked! This week,
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow returned to work, after taking time off
following his announcement that doctors had discovered more cancer. In an
interview with CBS' Early Show, Snow was asked about remarks made by former CIA
Director George Tenet on 60 Minutes. According to Tenet, "We could never
verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction, and control, complicity
with al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America. Period."
Snow boldly declared that the White House never tried to link Iraq and
September 11. Those of us paying attention to the shifting justifications for
the war against Iraq were simply shocked that Snow would tell such a bald-faced
lie.
Disgruntled
wants to know: You hear it
all the time from apologists of the war against Iraq, Republicans and Democrats
-- 'We are there now!' It's like the justification for continuation of the
violation after the victim has made it clear she wants no part of the rapist's
plans for copulation. After tearing off her clothes, slapping her across the
cheeks and uttering other threats when she resists his "amorous"
advances, the rapist, poised between the unwilling victim's legs, says,
"We are here now..." Never mind what it took to reach this horrid
situation. Question is, why is Congress aiding and abetting the rape of Iraq
when there is ample evidence on which to impeach Bush and Cheny, and when
Congress can cut off funds and bring the troops home?
Mailbox: E-Mails,
Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email
www.321gold.com What Record High? Peter Schiff...As the Dow burst through
the 13,000 milestone this week, few understood the hollowness of the
achievement. Measured against the rising dollar-denominated prices of just
about everything else on the planet, the Dow has actually lost value over the
past seven years. Measured against the truest benchmark, the price of gold, the
record high for the Dow was set back in January of 2000 when its price equaled
approximately 43 ounces of gold. Today it is only worth about19 ounces. To
better appreciate just how much of stock gains can be attributed to inflation,
consider that the record high for the Dow in 1929 of approximately 380 also
equated to 19 ounces of gold. So despite all of the hoopla and a thirty-fold
increase in stock prices, the Dow has actually gained no real value during the
past eighty years. The entire rise from 360 to 13,000 has been an illusion made
possible by the magic of inflation. So much for the concept of stocks being a
"can't lose" long term investment -- unless you feel that eighty
years is not quite a long enough time horizon!
Email
www.legitgov.org...Post-Katrina Foreign Aid
Offers Went Unaccepted --Administration has used only fraction of allies'
pledged donations in hurricane aftermath, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more
than $125B to date. 29 Apr 2007 Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil
that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for
disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and
contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of
oil... In another instance, the Department of Homeland Security accepted an
offer from Greece on Sept. 3, 2005, to dispatch two cruise ships that could be
used free as hotels or hospitals for displaced residents. The deal was
rescinded Sept. 15 after it became clear a ship would not arrive before Oct.
10. The U.S. eventually paid $249 million to use [Jeb Bush contributors]
Carnival Cruise Lines vessels.
Email
coatesrd@muohio.edu ...Enough all
ready? Gas continues to spike, taking what little we have and making it less.
Less money for houses, clothes, family, and the future. Therefore, when will we
get mad enough, when will we declare enough already...I'm mad as hell...NO
GAS...On May 15th 2007!! Don't pump gas on May 15th. In April 1997,
there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices.
Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. On May 15th 2007, all
Internet users should boycott gas stations in protest of high prices. Gas is
now over $3.00 a gallon in most places. There are 73,000,000+ American members
currently on the Internet, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to
fill up. If all users refused to pump gas on the 15th, it would take
$2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil company's pockets
for just one day. So, please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and let's
try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day. If
you agree (which I can't see why you wouldn't) resend this to everyone on your
contact list. With it saying, I'm Mad as Hell -- ''Don't pump gas on May
15th"
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