Cross posted at my
blog
If you want to know what the state of the nation's poor is, look to New Orleans now. I work with the poor people's movement to end poverty. I am not poor. But the leaders of this movement are. That makes my leaders the nation's poor. And they know that what is going on in New Orleans is not some extraordinary situation. It's business as usual. The only difference is that the clock of active neglect and despair has been speed up. Wake up America. This is how we treat the poorest amongst us.
Poverty in the United States is a political choice, just as it was a political choice to not immediately respond to the national disaster that has hit the Gulf Coast. It is a political choice because we are the richest and most technologically advanced nation in the history of humankind. We could end poverty if we made it a priority. But we don't. And that says a lot about the moral values of America. It says a lot about you, and about me. It says that we have allowed this to happen, and that we are not doing enough to bring an end to the kinds of conditions that lead to the kind of crisis that is now happening in New Orleans.
Anyone who has spent time in a homeless shelter, who has seen a day labor site, been to a welfare office, worked in a low-income child care center would know that the Superdome conditions were typical of the conditions provided to the poor in the country. The overcrowding, incompetent management, lack of security and neglect from above are all typical of the facilities that we provide for our poor.
And so too is the blame. Rather than blame the police for not protecting poor neighborhoods from criminals, our country blames the people who live in those neighborhoods. Conservatives think that all poor people are criminals, and so it is criminals against criminals, not criminals against people. And this is, in fact, the real crime. It is the crime of racism, of neglect, of greed and of contempt for human rights. It is the crime of total disregard for the values of love, compassion and equality of the law.
I am as sickened by the crisis unfolding in New Orleans as I am by the constant crisis of poverty in this nation. Wake up America. I pray that this crisis will wake us up to the realities of criminal neglect of our nation's poor.
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