The AC Phoenix: More than a Newspaper, a Community Institution -- Issue No. 2014, June 2014

Page 5 June 2014 The AC Phoenix
Marking A Big Loss
By William Spriggs
William Spriggs
This week marked the loss of a powerful
voice in Maya Angelou. Fortunately,
many in the nation paused to notice her
loss. Dancer, actress, poet and teacher,
Angelou captured everyone’s attention
because of her ability to talk honestly
out of her own pain and to get people
to empathize, to share in the human
experience.
Recently, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a telling
piece for The Atlantic on reparations.
As Coates notes, he leaned on the work
of many people in writing the piece,
including his experience studying history
at his alma mater Howard University.
What he did better than others, however,
was weaving his argument through the
personal experience of current residents
of a Chicago neighborhood.
It was a great attempt to personalize a
history of bad policies that others had
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previously described in abstract form. But
perhaps his most telling passage was this:
“In America there is a strange and powerful
belief that if you stab a black person 10
times, the bleeding stops and the healing
begins the moment the assailant drops the
knife.” This is a concept rooted in memory
and a sense of who can claim to be harmed,
to have a sense of being wronged, to mourn,
a sense of humanity. The passage is potent
because it is a powerful way to explain the
lack of empathy for the plight of African
Americans.
That is one of the reasons Angelou was such
an important voice, because not everyone
could weave more than a century of biased
policies through the lives of one family, as
Coates did, and not everyone could be as
poetic and powerful as Angelou in bringing
empathy to African American lives. But there
is a far deeper damage than the case Coates
makes about reparations that flows from
America’s inability to empathize with the
position that bad policies have left African
Americans in.
At his commencement address to Howard
University’s graduation in 1965, President
Lyndon B. Johnson said, “Negro poverty is
not White poverty. Many of its causes and
many of its cures are the same. But there
are differences-deep, corrosive, obstinate
differences-radiating painful roots into the
community and into the family and the
nature of the individual.
These differences are not racial differences.
They are solely and simply the consequence
of ancient brutality, past injustice and
present prejudice.” Johnson’s speech that
June day was meant to elicit empathy for
African- Americans, to connect them as
worthy to claim the American Dream. And,
to do this, he makes clear reference to a
history of policies with malice; “not the
result of racial differences”-differences in
character, culture or morals.
Now, whenever America goes into
recession, the fault lines of the policies
of the past create crevices into which
hundreds of thousands of African-
Americans fall-compounding poverty
through the loss of incomes and savings.
But, rather than focus on bad policy, it
quickly becomes a story about issues of
character, as Congressman Paul Ryan did
in explaining American poverty.
The inability to dissect bad policies and
to then quickly divert attention to the
victims of the policies does not just harm
African-Americans. It hurts America. The
lack of empathy, the sense that letting
Wall Street run amok, removing the wage
floor from beneath workers, denying
workers their right to organize, lowering
investments in our schools and colleges
have no consequences, leaves Americans
with blameless politicians and business
elites.
Five years into a recovery that has only
finally restored the number of jobs that
were in place five years ago, but leaves
millions unemployed and the incomes
of the median family still lower and the
poverty rate higher, and thousands still
with homes lost to the financial “games” of
Wall Street, is not really recovery. Lack of
empathy is part of the ability of Republicans
to vote against extending unemployment
benefits or to cut Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits or fail
to extend Medicaid coverage as more than
half of America is still making up income
losses. They feel no responsibility for those
left struggling.
It isn’t enough for Americans that we have
passed new regulations for Wall Street if
we don’t have policies to undo the harm
those policies caused. Americans deserve
to be made whole. As long as we limit the
narratives and stories we may tell, we will
limit the policy options we can discuss.
And our current “memory” defines who is
suffering and who gets to make claims on
policy-not the 99 percent.
My House is not Your
Home
By Raynard Jackson, NNPA Columnist
Raynard Jackson
Since the economic crash of 2008, I think
everyone has had to make adjustments
– except the federal government –
including cutting back on discretionary
spending, fewer weekends at the beach,
eating out less, etc. What I like about
Americans is that when times get hard,
we have a tendency to reach out to help
those around us who are less fortunate.
We will share a loaf of bread with a
neighbor. We will give a bag of groceries
to a needy member of our church. We
will pay the fees for our child’s friend to
attend summer camp.
Those we have some connection to will
always be on the receiving end of our
largess when we have the wherewithal
and after we have fulfilled the obligations
we have to our families. This is the
America I love and cherish. But this love
is becoming somewhat diminished in
light of recent numbers on the level of
homelessness among children in the U.S.
There are two groups in the U.S. that we
should never allow to suffer – children
and senior citizens. Children are pure,
innocent and totally dependent on us
adults. Senior citizens have paid their
dues to society and paved the way for us
to enjoy the privileges we have.
But those aren’t the only two groups we
should be concerned about. A record 1.16
million students in the United States were
homeless last year, according to new data
from the U.S. Department of Education.
These were students from K-12 for the
school year 2011-12, the latest numbers
are available. This was a 10 percent
increase from the previous school year.
According to the federal government,
there were 55.5 million students enrolled
in school during this period, meaning
about 2 percent of all students were
homeless.
The states with the largest increases
of homeless students were: California,
New York, Texas, and Florida. What is
interesting about those states is they
are the same states with the largest
population of people in the U.S. illegally.
The Obama administration has actually
encouraged a flood of illegal children
to trek across Central America through
Mexico into the U.S. because they have
made it perfectly clear that they will not
enforce our immigration laws. This public
declaration has put our own kids at dire
risk.
According to Reuters, “An estimated
60,000 such children will pour into the
United States this year, according to the
[Obama] administration, up from about
6,000 in 2011. Now, Washington is trying
to figure out how to pay for their food,
housing and transportation once they are
taken into custody.
The flow is expected to grow. The number
of unaccompanied, undocumented
immigrants who are under 18 will likely
double in 2015 to nearly 130,000 and
cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion, up from
$868 million this year, according to
administration estimates.”
So, if these are the numbers the Obama
administration is using, they are probably
conservative.
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