Julian Bond: 5 Million More Live in Poverty Since Bush Took Office

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/07/09/julian-bond-5-million-more-live-in-poverty-since-bush-took-office/

Julian Bond: 5 Million More Live in Poverty Since Bush Took Office

by Mike Hall, Jul 9, 2007

The Bush administration has done little to advance the cause of civil rights says NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. Bond says President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina, the recent U.S. Supreme Court (with two Bush appointees) striking down race as a factor in school diversity plans and the 5 million more people living in poverty since he took office show that racial discrimination and inequality are far from vanquished.


NAACP Chairman Julian Bond

In opening the NAACP’s 98th annual convention in Detroit last night, Bond said:

Many Americans maintain—from corporate- and government-sponsored pulpits, from newspaper op-ed pages and from television and radio talk shows—that racial discrimination has become an ancient artifact. Thus they believe the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are now defined as a bias-free present where white supremacy has been vanquished and black disadvantage is rooted in black misbehavior, where culture, not color, is at fault.

At the NAACP, we know this is not true, and that’s why we are dedicated to an aggressive campaign of social justice, fighting racial discrimination. We’ve done this in the past and will continue to do it in the future.

There were 32 million Americans living in poverty when Bush took office. Said Bond:

That number has grown since 2001, with five million people having slipped below the poverty line during the Bush administration….Almost a quarter of black Americans nationwide live below the poverty line as compared to only 8.6 percent of whites.

Almost every social indicator, from birth to death, reflects black-white disparities. Infant mortality rates are 146 percent higher for blacks; chances of imprisonment are 447 percent higher; rate of death by homicide—521 percent higher; lack of health insurance—42 percent more likely; the proportion with a college degree—60 percent lower. And the average white American will live five and a half years longer than the average black American.

FULL story at link.

[fasttense]

1. You know the old joke. The bushes must love poor people because

they make so many of them. It is such a sad statement on who is important in this society.

A society is not judged by how well they keep their kings, but on how they treat the weakest among them. Our society today will be judged very poorly.

[IADEMO2004]

2. I could live with a President Bond

Why did he never run?

[MatrixEscape]

3. I am sorry, but this is a diversion and divisive to me.

I am sorry, but this article is a diversion and divisive to me.

It does more to underscore and encourage race issues than it does to bring solidarity to the poor across the country and around the World. While many people already KNOW the disproportionate numbers of whites versus people of color that live under those circumstances, (I mean, this is not a historic or new understanding) the article only helps to support the very segregation it argues against.

Why?

Well, as the poor of all colors, and even the failing middle-class, (who are no struggling to maintain their positions or are quickly slip-sliding into the poverty zone) will be most likely to see or acknowledge, this is a caste struggle and an issue of power.

Even though the divide between rich and poor grows daily, and the middle-class take their own failures personally and live in a media-induced denial, the last thing that will be on the forefront of this debacle is that America not only has a deeply entrenched and increasing caste-system, it does everything in its power to divert attention from it.

When you use color as the predominant issue, (while there is no denying the facts of proportion) you have the benefit of focusing on elements that help to prevent making the connections that people who clearly share a socio-economic dilemma. The poor should equate with the poor and see their common exploiter. Consequently, the middle-class should see themselves as slave-like enablers who are tossed extra crumbs and bones for supporting their own subjugation.

But no, let's focus on race. That gives so much room for the various colors to find room to stay separated rather than united in any way. Let's subtly ensure that a common caste-driven factor is not on the for front of the issue. That article could have easily been written with those points emphasized while still accounting for the dramatic and racist disparity that is self-evident.

Let's get into the realty of the economic caste and join together as people with common problems. Maybe the middle-class will see that that many of them have a greater chance and better odds of ending up with the dregs, (and without any safety-net) than they do being filthy rich and joining their elite masters ... oh wait, maybe winning the lottery is your religious conviction and a factual potential. Sorry.

When most of us are understood, (as was with the Great Depression) as going down in this flaming heist together, that is when we look at each other and see that not only are we all pinkish inside, we are in the very same boat and the wealthy have taken all the life preserves and lifeboats. We might want to band together and overlook the power of divide and conquer for a change. If a house divided does fall, then shouldn't we split their house before they succeed in felling ours with carefully researched words, ideas, and unparalleled propaganda?