Last week I wrote a commentary on the problems Black’s
can’t escape. The problems are largely socio-political in scope,
some self-perpetuating while others are perpetuated by historical
disparities. The inference that the problems of Black America
were incalculable and inescapable was not lost on many of you
(who responded in-kind through a bombardment of e-mails) that
we can’t give up hope. While I appreciate the response (good to
know folk are readin’) you missed the point of the commentary.
The point of the commentary was to contextualize the dilemmas
facing Black America and the multiplier effect that compounded
social problems have created. Hope without action is, like faith
without works, dead. We have to do more than HOPE things change.
It’s time for us all to act.
I purposely excluded economics in last week’s social
critique. The poverty discussion needs it own forum. Racism in
America has always been economic. Race, economics and circumstance,
for Black America, are intertwined, no matter the income class,
education or occupational lot in life. The interconnectedness
of the so-called “blessed of us” to the “least of us” is such
that none of us came afford to continue to ignore the problems
our people face. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized that we
were “inextricably connected” to our brothers smothering in the
air-tight vault of poverty. King also recognized that there was
no rational justification for such deep-seated poverty in America.
King criticized America as wanting to fund foreign wars more than
it wanted to fund domestic dignity. He planned to have a “Poor
People’s Campaign” to raise America’s conscience on the question
of poverty. He went to Memphis to show solidarity for striking
sanitation workers — more to put a face on poverty and to give
dignity to the cause of impoverished workers. King lost his life
in this campaign, and the Poor People’s Campaign failed in the
face of both national recalcitrance and political indifferent.
Race, economics and circumstance were factors then, and they are
factors now. King tried to make America face up to economic injustice
then. We must make America face up to economic injustice now.
We must re-engage a Poor People's Campaign in this country, to
bring attention to the growing effects of poverty.
Poverty is something urban communities will not escape
through passive engagement. “Tokenism” (passive investment in
urban communities, small donations to community organizations,
marginal social welfare policies) will not cure poverty. Detroit,
Southside Chicago and South Los Angeles look the same as they
did forty years ago. In some cases, they look worse than they
did forty years ago. The alternative has been to try to attain
“favorite Negro status” and escape the realities of impoverishment.
“Escapism” has been the solution for many Blacks who simply try
to earn enough money to separate themselves from the madness of
crime — which is a residual effect of socio-economic disparities.
What African Americans have realized in the thirty-nine years
since King’s murder is that they can’t escape poverty. Even the
more affluent Blacks can’t escape the despair of poverty. Not
as long as you have one family member or friend impacted by the
grips of poverty. How many people do you know that live in “the
hills”, but have to go back to “the flats” to visit “their people"?
How many people do we know that moved to the Westside, but have
to “go home” to visit “Mama” on the eastside or southside — not
because they don’t have the means to move her but because she
doesn’t want to move?
For many of our seniors, it’s the only neighborhood
they’ve ever known and they’re not leaving their homes, no matter
how much the “hood” has changed. How many of us have passed through
Skid Row and seen somebody you knew (well) and thought that was
the last person you’d see down there because “back in the day",
the person “had it goin’ on"? But circumstances change, and
life changes — and what was once up is now down. It’s earthshaking
and nerve shattering to know that “if not for the Grace of God,
that could be…” Individuals can escape poverty. Communities hardly
ever do, unless they’re gentrified — in which case, the impoverished
are just moved somewhere else, while the rich take over strategic
locales (which urban spaces are becoming increasingly more gentrified
and valuable).
The last forty years have proven that low income
people just can’t work their way out of poverty. They have to
hit the lotto or find they have minerals in their backyards. Wages
have been suppressed as high wage manufacturing jobs were replaced
by low wage service jobs. The fastest growing segment of the poverty
and welfare populations are people who get up and go to work everyday
and still can’t make ends meet, the “working poor".
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
of Los Angles and SEIU Local 6434b launched a National Poor People’s
Campaign this week that we hope will spread across the nation.
It was announced on the same day a rally was being held in support
of a security officers’ march for increased wages and improvement
in work conditions so the officers can have jobs with dignity.
The modern day example, of why we need a Poor People’s Campaign,
is the plight of security officers in Los Angeles (really, security
officers anywhere). Here are people, seeking dignity through work,
hired at minimum (or just above minimum) wage, to protect assets
in our communities — most times without a gun or sufficient back-up,
representing the first point of contact in dangerous situations,
but never earning the respect (numerous “toy cop” jokes) or the
money they deserve to provide for and protect their families.
In Los Angeles, Blacks are nine percent of the population and
over 70% of the security guard workers. Race, economics and circumstance
are big factors here. It’s the Memphis Sanitation Workers' dilemma
all over again. Black workers are good enough to protect business
interests all over the city, but not good enough to earn livable
wages and live with dignity.
This is just one industry where wage suppression
impacts the quality of one’s life. None of us can escape the realities
of the poor — no matter how much we try. And poverty will never
just “go away” as long as much of society tries to ignore it.
Black America can restore America’s social conscience by addressing
poverty. Poverty is not just a “black problem". It is a class
problem, a poor people’s problem, that disproportionately affects
Blacks. This is one problem we can address. Those who “invoke
King” every fifteen minutes…those who want to fight a war… those
who say Blacks need a focused cause to re-engage the civil rights
movement, here it is.
Campaign in your area, to eradicate poverty — King’s
last fight.
BC
columnist Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing
director of the Urban
Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race:
Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is www.AnthonySamad.com.
Click
here to contact Mr. Samad. |