STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE - Charlette Blackwell-Clark tells NCNAACP President Rev. William Barber and others with the Truth and Hope Poverty Tour how hard she tries to make end meet [ Cash Michaels video still]
POVERTY IN NC: BEAUFORT COUNTY
By Cash Michaels
Editor
Editor’s Note -For the next few weeks, The Carolinian will report on the issues surrounding persistent poverty in North Carolina. Based on research, and the Jan. 19-20 two-day Truth and Hope Poverty Tour through six counties last week, our stories will explore why there is poverty in our state, and what is, and is not being done to address it
Our goal is not only to bring awareness of this issue to our readers and community, but also to challenge our elected officials to do something substantive about the tremendous need for economic and social equity in our state.
Today, we focus on Beaufort County, the first of six counties on the tour.
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"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Benjamin Franklin
Last week, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, “I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.”
It may be tough convincing Charlette Blackwell-Clark of Beaufort County that Romney, the president, or anyone else for that matter, even cares about the poor.
Cares about her.
“I need help,” she cried out to members of the Truth and Hope Poverty Tour Through North Carolina when it arrived in Beaufort County Jan. 19. Blackwell-Clark, along with other local Beaufort County residents, tearfully told her story to ministers, activists and other members of the tour at Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church in Washington, the county seat of Beaufort.
“All I want is just a little, just a little happiness,” Blackwell-Clark pleaded, telling a long and troubling story of frustrating year after year of setbacks by weather catastrophes, in effective government agencies, bad luck and greed by those who prey on the poor.
The longtime Beaufort County resident cleans housing for a living, but the meager income barely keeps her head above water, she says. Blackwell-Clark lives in an old mobile home, but she and her husband, a sanitation worker, are trying desperately to become homeowners.
But the challenge is mighty, and while Rev. David Moore, pastor of Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion, is helping her, as he has helped so many others over the years as they struggle to improve their circumstance, the private and public resources have dried up, thanks to a merciless economy that has hit eastern North Carolina twice as hard as anywhere else in the state.
“The needs here are great,” the pastor said.
Story after story of the increasing number of homeless people needing shelter, able-bodied workers unable to find jobs because industry has dried up there, and county government taking 20 years to provide basic water and sewer services to poor, predominately black communities, abound in Beaufort.
In a state where, according to the 2010 US Census, an estimated 1.47 million people lived in poverty in 2009 (over 165,000 more than in the previous year), Beaufort - the self-proclaimed, “Waterfront Capital of North Carolina” because over 13 percent of its 959 square miles is water - is one of the poorest counties in eastern North Carolina, though it’s not in the top ten.
The reasons for its poverty status are historic, persistent and systematic.
According to the latest US Census figures, approximately 48,000 people lived in the eastern North Carolina county in 2010. Whites outnumber blacks 68 to 25 percent. Over 81 percent of the county’s residents have a high school diploma, but only 19 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
When it comes to income, officially over 17 percent of Beaufort County’s population lives below the official federal poverty level of $22,000 annual income for a family of four. The median household income is just over $40,000.
County officials say they believe the poverty numbers are far worse, especially since Beaufort has lost at least 6,000 jobs in recent years.
The legacy of slavery and segreation is part of the problem, says Alexandra Forter Sirota, director of the NC Budget and Tax Center, a research arm of the nonprofit NC Justice Center in Raleigh.
Beaufort is part of the state’s historic agricultural belt, and South’s “Black Belt.” It didn’t have the cottage industries of the Piedmont or the coast to build on, and still doesn’t.
Sirota’s research shows that since slavery was essential to the region’s primary industry centuries ago, there wasn’t anything for eastern North Carolina to transition to once agriculture saw its best days, and slave labor was outlawed.
The primary workforce remained poor generationally, and the economic infrastructure of the region was weak, and remained so to this day.
“Those communities had very few opportunities for work in those populations,” Sirota says.
Tom Thompson, executive director of the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission, agrees that the historic poverty in Beaufort County has been systematic.
“We’re in eastern North Carolina. We don’t even have an interstate highway going up and down. They’re building them so fast in Raleigh, they can’t get enough concrete to finish them,” an indignant Thompson said.
Without a major interstate nearby, businesses and factories locate elsewhere so that they can easily and quickly, transport their raw materials and inventory in, and then quickly ship their products out.
As a result, Thompson says, North Carolina awards JDIG - Job Development Investment Grants, designed as “discretionary incentives that provide sustained annual grants to new and expanding businesses” - to already thriving areas of the state.
“Half the (JDIG) grants, the biggest grants the state gives, half,…millions of dollars, went to Mecklenburg County and that area last year. Half. “I don’t think we got one east of I-95.”
“This is systematic,” Thompson continued. “That means the state policies don’t favor us.”
There other economic development grants, Thompson continued, where a county or region’s level of poverty is not part of the qualifying criteria.
“It’s not even in the formula,” Thompson says. Thus, while the Piedmont is able to attract the new technology, research centers and investments, Thompson continued, poor counties down east like Beaufort get nothing.
Tim Crowley, spokesperson for the NC Dept. of Commerce, confirmed that Brunswick County was the only county in the past year down east to have received a JDIG grant, and that Mecklenburg had been awarded several.
Crowley said a committee determines which counties get the economic development awards. A second, smaller program, where the governor decides where the grants go, has awarded several smaller grants to Beaufort County to help businesses expand, Crowley added.
Still, according to officials in Beaufort, that’s nowhere near enough given the historic struggles they’ve had.
“We all need to take [this] back to Raleigh, with us, to our Legislature, to our governor, to everyone involved and say, ‘Come down [east] and look at this map, and tell us what you’re doing about it,” Tom Thompson, Beaufort’s economic developer, told Truth and Hope Poverty Tour members.
“I can tell you right now, they’re not doing anything of a significant nature,” Thompson continued. It’s all window dressing.”
“The state of North Carolina has not addressed poverty in eastern North Carolina.”
[Editor’s note - The Truth and Hope Poverty Tour Through North Carolina was sponsored by the NCNAACP; the NC Justice Center; the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity and the NCCU Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change.
It begins its second leg March 2.]
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HK on J6 TO CHALLENGE GOP LEGISLATURE
By Cash Michaels
Editor
In the six years that the annual HK on J People’s Assembly march and rally has taken place, never before has the NCNAACP-led coalition faced a NC General Assembly so hostile to its goals of social justice.
Since the Republican majority took over both chambers over a year ago, there have been GOP-backed efforts to add North Carolina to the growing list of states requiring voter ID; shortening the One Stop/early voting period; limiting a woman’s right to choose; a billion dollars cut from the state’s education budget; redistricting a majority of black voters into just a handful of minority-majority districts; and maintaining a criminal justice system that gives black defendants in criminal justice cases the death penalty more than their white counterparts.
Thanks to the advocacy of the HK on J Coalition - a statewide collective of over 100 progressive and social justice groups - and Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto pen, voter ID is not a reality yet, and the Racial Justice Act, which requires judicial review of capital cases to ensure there was no racial bias in the process, hangs by a thread.
Plus, a three-judge panel this week gave the go-ahead to the NCNAACP’s lawsuits against the Republican redistricting maps, saying that there were enough constitutional and alleged racial gerrymandering issues to merit a court trial.
Those issues, in addition to the growing rate of poverty across the state, and the GOP-sponsored Amendment One referendum to ban same-sex marriage on the May primary ballot (North Carolina law already bans gay marriages), have energized NCNAACP President Rev. Dr. William Barber, then HK on J convener, and his supporters, to take to the streets of Raleigh again this Saturday, February 11th, to demand justice.
The themes for this year’s event, “Forward Together, Not One Step Back! We Must Stand for Freedom and Defend Democracy. We Will Not Be Defeated or Divided. We shall Pursue Liberty and Justice for All. We the People Shall Not be Moved.”
Rev. Barber charged that the conservative NC Legislature is, “…trying to shrink democracy, rather than expand it.”
"This year's People's Assembly and our March on Jones Street are more important than ever," Rev. Barber said in a statement. "If you believe in voting rights, fighting poverty, funding high quality education for every child and moving North Carolina forwards and not backward, you should march with us on February 11. We must keep an eye on Jones Street, where we have seen ultra conservative extremists in the General Assembly put forward some of the most regressive public policy agendas ever."
"This rally is about mass mobilization for February 11, mass organization after February 11, and mass civic participation,” Rev Barber continued. “We must stand for a progressive agenda that promotes the "good of the whole" rather than an agenda based on the whims and narrow ideology of a few."
Benjamin Todd Jealous, national president/CEO of the NAACP, is expected to once again take part in HK on J this Saturday. He says the nation is watching North Carolina.
“[This is] a crucial state where voting rights and economic justice are under attack," Jealous said in a statement.
"On February 11th, people of all colors will come together to challenge persistent poverty, unequal education and voter suppression in North Carolina,” Jealous continued. “We will show the nation that America is at its best when we struggle together for inclusiveness, diversity and opportunity."
The HK on J Coalition is making sure it reaches out to other disaffected communities, having its posters and fliers translated into Spanish for Latinos, and joining with the gay community to opposed the Republican-sponsored Amendment One ballot referendum to ban same-sex marriage in North Carolina.
Rev. Barber says all people should oppose Republican efforts to single out a specific community for constitutional discrimination. North Carolina state law already bans same-sex marriage.
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week ruled that California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, now sending the case most likely to the US Supreme Court for a final decision.
If Amendment One does pass in North Carolina, it will not be the final word.
There will be a pre-HK onJ6 People’s Assembly Worship Service Friday evening, 7 p.m. at St. Paul A.M.E Church, 402 West Edenton Street in Raleigh. Beyond Rev. Barber, Rev. Dr. C. H. Brown, chair of the Religious Affairs Committee of the NCNAACP, and special guest, Bishop Adam J. Richardson, Jr., Presiding Prelate of the Second Episcopal District, will deliver remarks.
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RUNNING - Former Congressman Bob Etheridge, seen here speaking with Carolinian publisher Paul Jervay Jr. in 2010, announced that he is running for governor [Cash Michaels Photo]
GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHO CAN WIN?
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
Now that former UNC System President Erskine Bowles, seen by many Democratic insiders as the best possible candidate for North Carolina governor in the fall, has turned down the prospect, the field of hopefuls to oppose Republican Pat McCrory is now growing.
Last week, former North Carolina Second District Congressman Bob Etheridge officially threw his hat into the ring that also includes Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and State Rep. Bill Faison of Orange County.
NC Congressman Brad Miller, who announced that he will not run for re-election in the 13th District now that the Republican-led General Assembly has redrawn it, was expected to indicate this week whether he’ll join the race.
Ditto for former NC Treasurer Richard Moore, who failed in his bid for governor in 2008.
State Sen. Dan Blue, whose name was also highly touted in the same breath as Bowles, told The News & Observer of Raleigh he's given a run serious consideration.
"I have talked to scores of people and given some thought to it and some analysis," Blue told The N&O Tuesday. "It's a pretty significant undertaking, and you just don't dash in to it."
Sen. Blue holds the distinction of serving as North Carolina's first African-American speaker of the House in the early 1990's. He is also currently chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees.
Observers note that with an African-American being renominated for president, and the Democratic National Convention being held here in Charlotte the first week in September, having Blue as the NC Democratic Party standardbearer could energize the electorate.
"I have talked to scores of people and given some thought to it and some analysis," Blue told The N&O Tuesday. "It's a pretty significant undertaking, and you just don't dash in to it."
Sen. Blue holds the distinction of serving as North Carolina's first African-American speaker of the House in the early 1990's. He is also currently chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees.
Observers note that with an African-American being renominated for president, and the Democratic National Convention being held here in Charlotte the first week in September, having Blue as the NC Democratic Party standardbearer could energize the electorate.
A Blue candidacy, more so than any other, would ensure a sizable African-American turnout at the polls in the both the primaries, and the November general elections.
The only question on the table, and it's surely one that Sen. Blue is pondering, is will his party, meaning the moneymen and fundraisers, support him? It was that lack of financial support that doomed his 2002 run for the US Senate against then opponent Erskine Bowles.
"There is no doubt that Dan is as capable of being Governor as anybody in NC," Brad Thompson, a former Raleigh City councilman, says. "It depends on whether we are prepared to made a decision on merit or if other factors influence who is best to lead. Certainly the ability to raise money will be one of the considerations. And it is important to win not only the primary but the general election."
Beyond Blue, is the announced Democratic gubernatorial field thus far, of Etheridge, Dalton and Faison potent, and can any of those who have indicated they’d like to succeed Gov. Beverly Perdue - who announced two weeks ago that she will not run for re-election - muster enough money, and excitement among the Democratic Party’s base - which includes African-Americans and young people - to fully compete in November?
The only question on the table, and it's surely one that Sen. Blue is pondering, is will his party, meaning the moneymen and fundraisers, support him? It was that lack of financial support that doomed his 2002 run for the US Senate against then opponent Erskine Bowles.
"There is no doubt that Dan is as capable of being Governor as anybody in NC," Brad Thompson, a former Raleigh City councilman, says. "It depends on whether we are prepared to made a decision on merit or if other factors influence who is best to lead. Certainly the ability to raise money will be one of the considerations. And it is important to win not only the primary but the general election."
Beyond Blue, is the announced Democratic gubernatorial field thus far, of Etheridge, Dalton and Faison potent, and can any of those who have indicated they’d like to succeed Gov. Beverly Perdue - who announced two weeks ago that she will not run for re-election - muster enough money, and excitement among the Democratic Party’s base - which includes African-Americans and young people - to fully compete in November?
The answer to that question may not be fully realized until filing for the May 8th primaries officially commences on Monday, Feb. 13.
While everyone waits to see how the governor’s race is going to shake out, high profile candidates in other races are already announcing their intention to file.
State Schools Superintendent June Atkinson has announced that she will file for re-election to a third term in office. The veteran Democrat is expected to face off against fellow Democrat State Rep. Rick Glazier of Cumberland County, who officially announced his candidacy Thursday.
On the Republican side, Wake County Board of Education member John Tedesco says he intends to file to oust Atkinson from her long held seats. At least one other Republican is expected to challenge Tedesco in the May 8th primaries for the right to face Atkinson, assuming she prevails against Rep. Glazier.
First District Congressman G. K. Butterfield is also expected to file next week, however some of his colleagues in the North Carolina Congressional Delegation won’t.
Democratic US Rep. Health Shuler of the Eleventh District has decided not to seek a fourth term in office. His district had been redrawn by the Republicans to make it more difficult for him to win.
And Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick of the Ninth District is calling it quits after serving in Congress since January 1995. She decided not to run, she says, after discussions with her family. Mecklenburg County Commissioner Jim Pendergraph, a Republican, announced Wednesday that he will run for Myrick’s seat.
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TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS
FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA IN RALEIGH MARCH 2
First Lady Michelle Obama is coming back to Raleigh on March 2 to headline a fundraiser for her husband’s, Pres. Barack Obama, re-election campaign. Mrs. Obama will appear at a North Carolina Women for Obama luncheon at the City Center Marriott in downtown Raleigh. Tickets are $500 per person. The Democratic National Convention, where the president will be re-nominated, will be held in Charlotte the first week in September.
PORTION OF HISTORIC WOOLWORTH LUNCH COUNTER AT NCCU
It was 52 years ago at the downtown Durham Woolworth store when black students walked in, ordered coffee at the lunch counter, and boldly challenged North Carolina’s segregation laws. Last Sunday, a portion of that historic lunch counter was formally dedicated for display at the James E. Shepard Memorial Library on campus, to commemorate the 1960’s sit-in movement that changed the course of history. That lunch counter portion is now on permanent display at the library.
SUPT. TATA ATTENDS PROTEST FORUM AGAINST HIS SCHOOL CHOICE PLAN
A community meeting criticizing the Wake County School System’s school choice student assignment plan last week had an uninvited guest - the man in charge of the school system. Wake Supt. Anthony Tata was in the audience as members of the NCNAACP and Great Schools in Wake Coalition charged that Tata’s student assignment plan could create more racially identifiable high poverty schools. Tata did not speak, but after the session, he told reporters that he was not allowed to answer many of the questions that were asked about his plan. Tata has asked parents to “wait” and see how the plan shakes out. The Wake School Board had wanted to change aspects of the plan, but, on the promise that Tata’s staff would closely monitor it, have allowed it to proceed.
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS
THREE-JUDGE PANEL RULES THAT NC REDISTRICTING LAWSUITS CAN PROCEED
[RALEIGH] Two lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the redistricting plan drawn up by the Republican-led NC General Assembly can go forward, ruled a special three-judge panel Monday. Some of the challenges by the NCNAACP, several Democratic Party members and other groups, focusing on how arbitrary the maps were drawn were dismissed by the judges. But claims dealing with the constitutionality of racial gerrymandering, split precincts and counties, were retained for argument. Republican legislative leaders said they were confident they will win. Democrats and the NCNAACP were also optimistic that their side will win. No hearing date had been set for arguments at press time.
REP. WOMBLE RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL
[WINSTON-SALEM] Good news for friends, family and supporters of state Rep. Larry Womble. He was released from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center last weekend after spending months recuperating from serious injuries sustained during a December head-on car crash that killed the other driver. Police that driver had a blood alcohol level of .29,m well beyond the legal limit, while Womble was not intoxicated. A spokesperson says the Guilford County Democrat was moved to a rehabilitation facility for the next two months. Womble is able to stand with assistance, but his ability to communicate is limited.
PUBLIC ASKED ABOUT PUTTING TOLLS ON I-95
[HALIFAX COUNTY] The Interstate 95 highway through North Carolina is in bad shape, and getting worse every year. Officials with the NC Dept. of Transportation say it needs to be repaired before it becomes dangerous to ride, so they’re proposing tolls every 20 miles, and want to know what citizens think about it. Starting this week, NCDOT is holding seven public hearings across the state to get public input. Because states are not allowed to put tolls on existing roads, the state has to get a waiver from the federal government. If approved, the tolls would begin in 2019.
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DON CORNELIUS
MEDIA
CASH IN THE APPLE
By Cash Michaels
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KALA - The youngest of my two most precious jewels in life turns nine-years-old on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14th. What a tremendous gift from GOD she is. Smart, talented, a great student, creative, funny, caring, intuitive…I could go on. My love for KaLa is boundless, exceeded only by my hopes and dreams for her. My job as her “Old Man” is to do everything I can to make sure that she takes advantage of every opportunity GOD affords her. I’m proud of her. Happy Birthday, Kid, from Dear Old Dad.
DON CORNELIUS - Last weekend, one of the greatest tributes that can ever be paid to a cultural icon took place in cities and towns across America.
In heartfelt memory of Don Cornelius, the man who brought the world “Soul Train” in the 1970’s and for 35 years thereafter, people gathered in streets and plazas, formed their version of the legendary “Soul Train line,” and danced down the middle in the freezing cold.
If the pictures from Times Square in New York City, Chicago, and even right here in Durham, NC are any indication, it was their joyful way of saying “Thank You” to a man they all recall from their childhood for bringing so much joy.
Our community hasn’t collectively expressed this kind of expression of love and thanks in a long, long time.
By now you know that Don Cornelius reportedly committed suicide in his Sherman Oaks, California home last week with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
He was 75.
I found it truly amazing, but also comforting, to see the tremendous number of tributes that flowed in after the sad news spread. Everyone from Stevie Wonder to “Lady Re” Aretha Franklin made it known that Don Cornelius was a legendary man of music who was the first to create a weekly television show for black music for the world to enjoy.
I’ve seen it written and said that Cornelius virtually “discovered” singers like Aretha.” That’s not true. The Jackson Five, Stevie, James Brown and yes, Aretha, had been performing on various white variety shows like Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” for years before Soul Train hit the airwaves in 1971.
But what Cornelius did do first - long before Black Entertainment Television - was create a venue that featured black talent exclusively. So it was possible to see both The Jackson Five and The O’Jays perform on the same TV show on the same Saturday morning, something that was absolutely unheard of except at a live concert.
However, Soul Train offered even more.
It was the primary showcase, coast to coast, of the latest dances and fashions.
From Afro hairdos to slimmer than slim matador pants, the young people who danced on Soul Train every Saturday morning were national trendsetters. Their dancing was as varied as their ethnicities - black, Hispanic, Asian-American, and white.
Young people, coming together every week to share the power and beauty and creativity of black music and culture.
Young people movin,’ groovin’, and having fun.
But Cornelius was also very clever. He used the draw of black music to also slip in some black pride, culture and history.
Thus, the Soul Train Scramble Board, where a young couple would guess the name the a black figure in history by simply unscrambling the letters on the board to spell their name (Cornelius later revealed that the scramble board was “fixed” to ensure that the couple could always get the name right, saying that it would have been embarrassing for anyone not to get the right answer).
There was an unmistakable formula to Soul Train that millions of viewers tuned in for every week.
There is no question that Cornelius inspired many up and coming artists with his interviews onstage with folks like Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Chaka Khan and others. And he certainly gave many new artists like Minnie Riperton valuable exposure.
By all means let’s not forget that Don Cornelius was all about black business. He owned Soul Train, was sponsored by Johnson Products and Johnson Publications, and had black music producers like Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and Dick Griffey, produce the Soul Train theme.
It is a shame that the demons that plagued Cornelius ultimately pushed him to take his own life, but if was far from a wasted life, indeed. His name, and legacy, will forever be part of our collective proud black history.
Thank you, Don Cornelius. We’ll forever remember you with “love, peace and soul!”
CLASSLESS M.I.A. AND NICKI MINAJ - If this were a Star Trek episode, the captain of the Enterprise would be screaming, “Red Alert, Red Alert!”
Not that it hasn’t happened before, because it has, but there is a special cheap and tawdry brazenness that many of the young black female performers of today are displaying these days in their shows that defy any sense of decency.
Or talent, for that matter.
Take rapper Nicki Minaj. I understand she has to distinguish herself from other performers like Rihanna and Beyonce, but coming out with a song called, “Stupid Hoe” a song with lyrics I couldn’t possibly reprint here and keep my job, is scraping the bottom of the scum barrel.
The song and video are so offensive, BET won’t run it. And given the crap they’ve run over the years, you KNOW Nicki’s latest has to be bad if BET won’t touch it.
But at least Minaj “behaved” herself during the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which featured Madonna, CeLo Green, and others.
The same can’t be said for British rapper M.I.A.
Homegirl, known for her controversial style and behavior, even though she’s married to a wealthy businessman, decided to give over 100 million viewers, in the US alone, her finger during her performance Sunday night.
“I love you” was anything but her message.
Now, I’m not stupid. I know that there is a segment of the youth audience that, quite frankly, likes this kind of worthless, unimaginative and ANGRY type of …dare I say it, entertainment.
The problem is that the more Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. proliferate, the more of that type of crud will be produced for our female children to listen to, stuff that will rust their minds.
Am I for freedom of speech? Of course, but I’m also for YOU being responsible for the speech you feel so free to speak.
Someone is making big money off of corrupting our youth, and pimping the minds and souls of our little girls.
So the question is, “How can we take the profit out of this before it ruins another generation of young people?”
We need to be serious about dealing with this, or else we’ll still be talking about it ten years from now.
After the damage has long been done.
ROMNEY DISMISSES “VERY POOR” - Something that was missed in Mitt Romney’s “I’m not concerned about the very poor…” remarks last week, and I’m surprised none of our prestigious political “experts” picked up on it.
The leading Republican presidential candidate deliberately used the term, “very poor.” Why?
Because Republicans and conservatives, by and large, don’t believe that the regular “poor” really exist. To them, being poor in America means you still have a car, a color TV (or two), and maybe even cable. The GOP believe that the regular poor are lazy, irresponsible with their money, love welfare, and depend on the government more than their own self-reliance.
These people deserve no respect whatsoever, the GOP say, and the sooner we ignore them and force them to get up off their duffs and find jobs, the sooner they’ll cease being poor by their own design.
Did you hear THAT, struggling families. If you’re not rich and about to lose your house, THAT’S YOUR FAULT, according to Romney and the Republicans.
So that means the only folks who deserve even a mention by the Republicans are the “very” poor, folks who apparently don’t have a color TV (or TV set at all, for that matter), or a car, and barely a place to live, or food to eat. Apparently these folks are absolutely and certifiably unable to work and care for themselves, thus the moniker, “very poor.”
But wait, Mitt Romney said despite the very poor’s certifiably desperate condition, neither he, nor we, still have to worry about them much because with food stamps and Medicaid and Medicare and whatever other social safety net the government provides, they’re automatically taken care of.
And, Romney assures, if there are holes or cracks in that social safety net for the “very poor,” all we have to do is just elect him as our next president, and he’ll “fix it” when he finds the time after focusing on the middle-class.
Isn’t that peachy?
So if you’re poor, meaning you still have a roof over your head, and can still work, even though you have been looking for a job for the past two years or more an d worried beyond belief where the next dollar is coming ffrom, then Romney and the GOP aren’t that concerned about you.
In fact, they really detest you.
But if you’re “very” poor, they actually don’t care much for you either, but since you have a valid excuse, they’ll allow government to take limited care of you until they decide you’re not worth being taken care of anymore.
Is all of that clear now?
I certainly hope so.
Make sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.Power750.com. And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my new blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html). I promise it will be interesting.
Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.
Until next week, keep a smile on your face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.
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