He was a beautiful bouncing baby boy. He was born to two parents that love him dearly. Even before his birth, indeed, prior to conception, this little fellow was the apple of his parent's eyes. His biological beginning was carefully calculated. As the seeds of life developed into a bright-eyed baby, the people he now knows as Mom and Dad thought of little else but Maxwell. The soon to be proud Papa and Momma anxiously anticipated the day they could hold this bundle of joy. Each of his parents was eager to meet and greet the small, sweet face of the guy that they would call Max. Maximum value, supreme significance, marvelously magnificent, all this was and would be their son. After Max was delivered and during any political season, such as this, Mom and Dad feel certain Max is issue number one.
As someone who lives in a neighborhood going through gentrification I am often at odds with my belief that poor people need to be integrated into mixed income neighborhoods and the fact that many poor people trash the neighborhoods they live in. We must develop a method of removing poor people from the isolation of ghetto existence, while at the same time protecting the values of the properties we relocate them to. Unfortunately because of personal decisions, lifestyles, and circumstances many of our poorer citizens have lost either the desire or the ability to respect their environments. Many will say that this is due to our treatment of poor people and I would not disagree with this, but this does not help in creating situations that will allow them to escape the dangers of ghetto life.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. ~ Martin Luther King, Junior
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~ Martin Luther King, Junior.
Days from now America will commemorate an anniversary. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Junior was brutally assassinated. Citizens will recall the wisdom of a man who lived for peace and yet, fell victim to violence. Homage will be bestowed. The American people will praise the preacher, the teacher, and the man who taught us all to speak of what remained tacit for too long. In the United States of America, all men are not equal. As a country, we do not treat people well. Nor do government officials lead us to the promised light of world harmony.
Why is it that when we encounter poor or homeless people they make us cringe? Why do we want to make them disappear into shelters or remove them out of our sights? Since the Reagan revolution we have instead of being at war against poverty, we have been at war with poor people. They litter our streets like so many abandoned cars at a salvage yard. Why has it been so easy to sell the false narrative that people are poor by choice and that if they would just work harder they wouldn't be poor? I think that our reactions to the poor says more about who we are than who they are. Let's face it there have been poor people throughout recorded history, so what's the big deal? The big deal is not that there are poor people, but that there are poor people we could help and don't.
is an elusive part of world philosophy. What represents justice for one person may be unacceptable to another. We humans have a marked tendency to disagree among ourselves these days as much as ever before. Frederick Douglass put the issue into fine perspective for me in his words
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
It's never been my interest to run a race-based campaign. My message has always been that I want everyone included in a broad coalition to bring about change.
I want to spend more time talking about solving the problems that people are feeling right now. ~ Barack Obama [United States Senator and Presidential Aspirant. January 27, 2008]
In any Presidential election year, we hear of the race. Yet, discussions of "race" are void, or are since a truce was tendered. Americas would like to think of themselves as colorblind. We are not. Citizens of this country embrace "colormuteness, a term coined by Mica Pollock, Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University. What Professor Pollock observes in classrooms and in the hallways of schools throughout the nation occurs each day on the campaign trail. Children who wish to achieve excellence in the classroom are restricted by conventions they learned at an early age in our nation's communities.
A look back over my life, epitomizes to me, what has happened to America. There was once upon a time those magic moments far removed from the madness of war, box stores, and shuttered towns. My brother Johnny and I would spend summer days at our secret 'camp' called Sundown. It sat above the steel mills far below in the valley. We would take an iron skillet, eggs, bacon, and eat our lunch there near the waterfall. I can't remember that we ever spent a moment indoors during the summer.
Booker Harris and his wife Allie are not household names. There has been no round the clock coverage of Mr. Booker, age 91, who was deposited in a lawn chair, in front of the Superdome, during Katrina. Mr. Booker died there of dehydration, shock, neglect, and racism of the first order. Allie, age 93, his frail wife, sat at his side munching on crackers, unaware of her surroundings, or the death of her husband.
They'd survived wars, the Great Depression, the KKK, segregated water fountains/restaurants, schools, housing, red neck Southern sheriffs, numerous floods, and hurricanes. What they didn't survive was the contemptible corruption, and gentrification by disaster, of the 21st century. What they didn't survive, was a nation that boasts of dancing amongst the stars, visiting distant planets, yet is incapable of building a levee here on earth?
In a recent diary of mine at the Big Orange a commenter used the phrase, "enough good." As the comment came across the screen I was reading an article in the local newspaper about hunger. With the rising costs of food increasing numbers of people are finding themselves unable to feed not only themselves but their children, too. In a nation rich as America this is beyond egregious.
There are pockets of people, and the shadow people you meet along life's way, who are baffled and confused, as to why people today (family members - neighbors - local politicians etc) seem so disinterested, apathetic, or downright complacent, concerning world affairs? Many people today cannot name the branches of government, discuss the workings of our monetary system (Federal Reserve), the labor movement, the robber barons, the reasons for the various wars (throughout history), the civil rights era, the constitution, nor the details of the various trade agreements (not discussed or debated in Congress) and how these agreements, are systematically bringing about the ruination of our country and causing (globally) a mass exodus of people from the land of their birth to strange lands and cultures. Forget trying to have a conversation on the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the Bilderbergers, CFR, or the various economic summits (deciding the real business of the world).
It was a lovely Saturday evening. We had no idea that within minutes, the telephone would ring and we would hear the news. A young woman, a beloved wife, the sister of eight siblings, and an associate of ours, had passed. Prior to the call, we did as Americans frequently do. Four of us piled into a late model automobile and drove down quiet streets. It was after dusk, early in the evening, when we arrived at the elegant restaurant. The lights were low. The ambiance was tranquil.
The hostess directed us to our table. She gave us a window seat. A stream surrounded the building. Ducks, geese, and swans, gently swam in the water. Birds quietly passed overhead. The server bought each of us a cool glass of iced water. Then he asked if we would like coffee, tea, a carbonated beverage, or perhaps an alcohol based brew. We had many choices. Food was placed in front of us. The supply of fodder seemed endless. Music played. There were no bullets or bombs blasting. Conditions and circumstances were unlike those in Iraq.
Today, I was reminded of how deeply divided this nation is. I read School Diversity Based on Income Segregates Some. I discovered in an attempt to offer equal opportunities, indeed, schools discovered discrimination remained a dominant force. School Boards, Administrators, and the community-at-large concluded educational institutions would be more diverse if learners were assigned to schools based on family incomes. A plan was introduced and implemented. The outcome was mixed; however, the pupil populations were less so. Some races, colors, and creeds were abundant within a given institution; others were not well represented.
Income inequity has been in the news of late; disparity is increasing. Jared Bernstein, of the Economic Policy Institute, wrote of this in, "The Catch-Up Economy." Paul Krugman, a writer-economist for the New York Times shared his views in "Left Behind Economics." Economics Professor J. Bradford DeLong comments on the subject. However, it seems to me that the views of these learned economists are limited. While assessing the statistics, I think experts miss the substance, what lies behind simple "economic" causes and effects.
"Forty years later, the schools in this part of town are among the lowest achieving anywhere in the city.
Forty years later, the unemployment rate is the highest of anywhere in the city." Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
August 11, 2005 was the anniversary of the infamous Watts riots. There were celebrations, an acknowledgment that time had passed. Yet, for most living in this area, time has stood still. There was little or nothing to celebrate. Life in the neighborhood is virtually the same. For those living in this Los Angeles community, some forty years have gone by and little has changed.
The Watts area, a section of South Central Los Angeles, is still symbolic of life in the "slums" of America. Poverty leads to greater poverty.
Conditions today are as they were in August 1965, horrendous. Then, more than half the residents were unemployed. One quarter of the households were receiving welfare. In 2005, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa suggests circumstances are similar.
Subscribe to Site [RSS]
