Robbing poor blacks of the only thing of value they have

By John Eidson

Their living conditions could only be described as tragic. Of the seven adults who shared the badly dilapidated rental unit in a rundown area of southwest Atlanta, not one held a job. They eked out a dead-end existence for themselves and the two children who lived with them by pooling government benefits, including an $852 monthly Section 8 housing subsidy. When I described their heartbreaking living conditions to a liberal friend, she replied in all seriousness, “That’s what you conservatives want, isn’t it?”

My brother in law is also a liberal. Last August, I forwarded to him an email I received earlier in the year about the interracial double murders that had just occurred in Knoxville. Using Wikipedia, he found that the press had since backed off initial reports that the white victims had been horribly mutilated by the black defendants. Without checking to see if I was aware that the reports had changed (I wasn’t), and apparently convinced I was a willing participant in a sick attempt to promote racial animosity, he sent a terse reply that I should “stay off the neo-Klan blogs”.

Here is where I stand on race and poverty:
* For the last twenty years, I worked as an executive recruiter in the graphic arts industry. When I saw that managerial positions at most printing plants were filled almost exclusively by whites, I actively sought minority candidates to present to my clients. Some of the highly qualified individuals I found jobs for were the first African-Americans to ever hold positions of responsibility at their new employers.

* A few years ago, I risked my personal safety to chase down a robber who stole the purse of an elderly black woman in a crime-ridden area of downtown Atlanta. When I returned the purse to its tearful owner, she told me it contained her just-cashed Social Security check, all the money she had to her name. It never entered my mind to not help her because she was black and poor.

* I do not have an iota of hostility towards black people, poor people, or anyone else. Although I was not enlightened enough at the time to take part in the civil rights movement, I recognized long ago that Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of our country’s greatest heroes. In short, I have nothing but best wishes for a people subjected to the terrible injustices of slavery and segregation, just as I do for all people who have yet to lift themselves from poverty.

The absurd insinuations about me from a friend of forty years and a man I have been related to for an equal time were not intended as personal attacks. They were merely a profound reflection of the twisted way two people I have known for decades have been indoctrinated to view conservatives: when it comes to race and poverty, conservatives are downright evil, even when they are long-time friends or close relatives.

My friend and my brother-in-law are not alone. For the last four decades, the Democratic Party has conducted a campaign to stereotype conservatives as mean-spirited racists who couldn’t care less about the suffering of others. Legions of rank-and-file liberals have been brainwashed into believing that their political opposites are morally-defective bigots who have a sadistic desire to starve children, kick old people out of nursing homes and disenfranchise minorities of their hard-won rights. Such charges are patently false.

Bumper stickers that express open contempt for the charitable instincts of conservatives are common in many blue-state areas of the country: “Better A Bleeding Heart Than No Heart At All”, “The Moral High Ground Is Built With Compassion”, The Road To Hell Is Paved With Republicans, “Republicans Are People, Too – Mean, Greedy, Selfish People”.

Given the realities of charitable giving by party affiliation – as a group, conservatives are demonstrably more generous than liberals -- it’s beyond ironic that so many liberals cast their ballots with an unfounded air of moral superiority. The right is routinely portrayed as greedy and uncaring, yet liberals do exactly the same as conservatives when it comes to personal charity: give a small fraction of what they have to the poor, while selfishly hoarding the lion’s share for themselves.

Neither liberals nor conservatives give until it hurts, but not because no one cares about human suffering. People of all political stripes have simply observed that continually giving money to people whose hands are always up does little to help them turn their lives around. That makes it hard to understand why anyone would support giving them an endless stream of government money.

Over the last four decades, the burden of caring for the poor has been politically shifted from the private sector to government. In doing so, we have created a weakened society where millions of citizens who ought to be working instead rely on public assistance. By giving the poor benefits they have not earned, the federal government has become a giant enabler that doles out just enough to extinguish the willingness of many recipients to make it on their own. As Bill Cosby accurately observed, welfare kills the human spirit.

Liberals are due full credit for being the first to recognize that something should be done about poverty. No conservative can argue that the war on poverty initiated by LBJ and a Democratic Congress was not well-intended. But, after forty years of massive welfare programs, the number of destitute citizens in the world’s greatest country remains appallingly high, particularly in urban areas. Our misguided compassion has contributed to the virtual disintegration of the black family, with generations of innocent children born into lives of hopelessness.

The tragic plight of the nine African-Americans in the Section 8 duplex is all the evidence I need that on-going welfare is a cruel hoax to inflict on anyone but the severely disabled. Burgeoning welfare programs may attract votes, but they also cause grievous harm to millions of the very people they are intended to help. Open-border advocates claim that illegal immigrants do the work Americans won’t do. Many of the unemployed poor don’t do such work because welfare provides a far less strenuous alternative.

The way out of poverty is self-reliance, a lifestyle that welfare does little to encourage. From food stamps and Section 8 housing to WIC payments and Medicaid, government programs for the poor discourage work, reward idleness and make it easy for children to be thoughtlessly born into desperate conditions. Some of the chronically poor are where they are due to circumstances beyond their control. Many more have simply forfeited the chance to succeed in the greatest land of opportunity on earth, thanks in no small part to the initiative-destroying assistance of an enabling government.

No, we cannot declare cold turkey on the welfare-addicted, but we should do far more to actively encourage them in the other direction, not for our benefit, but for theirs. For too long, our national answer has effectively been to consign them to a dead-end existence while the rest of us live in comfort as far from the projects as we can get. In the process, we are robbing them of the only thing of value they have -- the chance for a better life.

What will we be doing forty-five years later...August 28, 2008?

"If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander."

Mary McLeod Bethune

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

Racial discrimination is alive and permeating the global community. As an Black citizen in the United States of America, I am concerned with how this nation is upholding, advocating, and supporting racial equality and eradicating racial injustice within our socioecnomic sytem.
A review of the United Nations assessment on America's progress in this area reveals that this nation is not yet brave enough to take the steps necessary to create a nation that is truly the land of the free. Read and review for yourself at United Nations web site.

Racism in America is not resolved because we as a nation refuse to come to the table and look at the historic development and present sustainment of racism. An honest dialogue cannot be had when the terms are pre-defined and the outcome pre-determined. We must be willing to remove all vestiges and verbage of discrimination.

We cannot hold ancient documents more precious than human dignity. America needs to form a Racial Repentance and Resolution Forurm. This body would begin the endeavor of creating a more perfect union by having founding documents of colonialism and racism removed and call for the drafting of documents that create a society that is not built on racism or patriarchy.

The uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and the peace movement, our greatest modern cause. When, now, two of these movements-woman and color-- combine in one, the combination has deep meaning.
WEB DuBois

Continuing to add to documents that were wretchedly and patently discriminatory in their creation does not transform those documents to egalitarian. We cannot recreate using the same pathetically flawed reason and expected to reach conclusions that will be reasonable and right.
In America in the new millenium Blacks experience disparity is social and physical ills. Our generations suffer from Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome, and Racism Denial Disorder to the point that even some Blacks have begun to believe the delusions fed to them by mainstream media and society. Sadly, some of us have become so desensitized to the vernacular of racist code that we do not recognize or translate the meaning. For example, the encouragement for Blacks and other minorities to adopt and adapt to 'American Values' = Assimilate.

There is also a faction of Blacks refusing to assimilate who are just as toxic because they want to hold the community of Blacks hostage to the past and demand that we as a race stagnate. These confused souls want us to hold on to the dear and departed leaders and their practices as if there is no possibility of new generations bringing forth dynamic, intelligent, and focused leaders for the present. We honor the past; however, we must embrace, uplift, support, and respect those rising from our communities to lead our community beyond the point that Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin left off -- far too early.


Our children are more likely to experience incarceration than education, our health is impeded by capitalistic system that denies health insurance by sending our jobs overseas or refusing to create jobs with living wages and benefits in our own nation. Our communities suffer economically and ecologically as businesses flee the urban core leaving huge plants and waste in our neighborhoods and our people unemployed.


The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. What will we be doing forty-five years later...August 28, 2008?

The revolution is at hand, and we must free ourselves of the chains of political and economic slavery. The nonviolent revolution is saying, "We will not wait for the courts to act, for we have been waiting hundreds of years. We will not wait for the President, nor the Justice Department, nor Congress, but we will take matters into our own hands, and create a great source of power, outside of any national structure that could and would assure us victory." For those who have said, "Be patient and wait!" we must say, "Patience is a dirty and nasty word." We cannot be patient, we do not want to be free gradually, we want our freedom, and we want it now. We cannot depend on any political party, for the Democrats and the Republicans have betrayed the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Martin Luther King 8-28-63

Women's Month

It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis womans strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. – Anna Julia Cooper

March is Women’s Month, set aside to reflect on the historical contributions of women, applaud the present endeavors of women, and celebrate the future of women. March 8 is International Women’s Day, the one day when women around the world focus on the global commonalities that prevent women from engaging uninhibited in culture, economics, government, politics, and religion which are the pillars of all society.

It is important for all humankind to recognize that the oppression and repression of women impairs men as well as women. When greater than one half of the human race is crippled by rape, domestic violence, and patriarchal subjugation that is perpetuated by economic and political systems, all of society is cheated of the opportunity to reach its fullest potential.

Women bring extraordinary perspectives to the table. Moreover, the woman’s voice speaks to circumstances in ways which no man can do likewise. Even the silence of the woman is a message that no man can communicate on her behalf.

The voice of the woman speaks in a roar that resounds with the rage and fury of having her space and body disturbed and violated.

She wails in plaintive and lamenting tones of one who has been stripped of her loved ones and homes in political insurrections and wars in which she had no voice.

Her silent tears tell of an anger so intense she dare not speak of the atrocities she has endured while seeking to contribute to a world that neither sees nor hears her.

From within her spirit she sings of the hope that she cherishes for herself, her sisters, her daughters, and her world…one day the world will welcome women to lead, teach, speak, and accept women as partners in the global community.

The global community must unite to end trafficking of women as sex slaves, domestic violence, economic and political discrimination, and the marginalization of women in culture, labor, religion, education and every segment of society.

"Not the boys less, but the girls more." – Anna Julia Cooper