Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 18:08:52 -0500 From: "Doug H." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: How did the underprivileged become targets of nation's contempt? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > How did the underprivileged become targets of nation's contempt? > > Julianne Malveaux > commentator > > Thirty years ago, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy led >caravans of people all over > the country to Washington, D.C., in the Poor People's March to protest >poverty and racial > discrimination. Abernathy had picked up the baton from Martin Luther King >Jr., but who has > picked up the baton from Abernathy? > > A generation ago, it was possible to rally people to the >nation's capital on such > issues, but today poor people have become the targets of our nation's >contempt. > > How else do we explain the congressional reluctance to >increase the minimum > wage by just a dollar an hour? Business critics say that an increase from >$5.15 to $6.15 an > hour would be inflationary and cause job loss. But with a soaring stock >market, and falling > prices in some sectors, there is no better time to increase wages. The 10 >million Americans -- > mostly women, disproportionately household heads, disproportionately >black and brown -- > would see their quality of life increase with increased wages. > > Our national hostility to the poor may also explain why >the availability of housing for > poor people has shrunk in the past decade. Federal subsidies for >affordable housing have > declined, and while the number of families that need rent subsidies is >rising, the number of > low-rent apartments has been falling. > > Some 5 million families -- a third of low-income families >-- spend more than half of > their incomes on rent. These families are struggling despite the low >unemployment rates we > keep reading about. Why? Because jobs are plentiful for those who are >willing to work for low > wages, but more scarce for those who demand a living wage. > > Our nation has moved 180 degrees away from the direction >Martin Luther King and > Ralph Abernathy were pointing toward. Then, we were alarmed that so many >of our children > lived in poverty. Now, the fact that a quarter of our nation's kids are >poor, and that an even > greater number fall asleep with empty stomachs at the end of the month, >does not seem to > disturb us. > > Have our hearts hardened to photographs of homeless and >hungry children, or > have we convinced ourselves that their distress is a preventable, >``personal'' problem? > > Have we become so smug about economic expansion that we >have failed to note > increasing requests for emergency food and shelter in our nation's >largest cities? > > Have we decided that rallies, protests and other mass >actions cannot eradicate > society's inequities, or have we become so weary that we aren't willing >to try anymore? > > Those who repudiate the vision of the Poor People's March >are all too eager to > quote King when he said that he looked forward to the day people are >judged by the > ``content of their character not the color of their skin.'' They forget >that King did not travel to > Memphis, Tenn., in April 1968 to increase character content. He risked >his life to increase the > wages of the lowest-paid workers in Memphis: garbage workers. > > Remember, King said that poverty was as much ``an >abomination as cannibalism at > the dawn of civilization.'' And when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, >he said: ``I have the > audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for >their bodies, > education and culture for their minds, peace and freedom for their >spirits.'' Amen. > > King had the ire and the fire for dozens of Poor People's >Marches. It is we who have > dropped the baton. > > ******* Malveaux is a Washington economist. She wrote this column for the >Progressive > Media Project, 409 East Main St., Madison, Wis. 53703. > Distributed for the project by KRT News Service. > > This material is > copyrighted and > may not be > republished > without > permission of the > originating > newspaper or > wire service. > ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ** --------------------------------
