Classroom to Capitol » poverty

Quality of Life, and Building it for my Kids

melindaklewis — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:51:01 +0000

**I’m still catching up on posts about all of the reading that I did between Thanksgiving and the beginning of February–my most prolific reading period of the entire year, for sure–and slowly going through the pile of sticky notes that I accumulated as I processed what I read, and what it made me think.**

This week, I have three posts related to the really excellent book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. You should totally read the book, which is full of data that turns what we think we know about poverty, and wealth, and well-being, on its head.

But, as usual, this isn’t so much a traditional ‘review’ as it is my reflections on what a particular concept means for me, and, I hope, for us.

Every parent wants a good quality of life for her/his children, right? I mean, I know not just for my neighbors–here in this pretty affluent suburb–but also for the immigrant parents with whom I have the honor to work, it’s the hope that the future holds something promising, and secure, and healthy for one’s children that motivates much of what we do.

But thinking about what the evidence says about real quality of life, and about how to get it, must provoke a reconsideration of our pursuits. Because, increasingly, we know that having more doesn’t mean having it better.

In the United States, especially for those not in the lowest income tiers, we’re reading the limit of what increasing living standards can offer us, in terms of health and life expectancy and all-around wellness.

In fact, we know that, inequality matters a lot in determining how healthy people are, how much they learn, even how happy they feel, even controlling for income.

It matters even more than we want to admit, because acknowledging how important equality is in shaping our own well-being means that we have to spend more collective energy (and public resources) figuring out wealth distribution instead of trying to get as much as we can for ourselves, or even just adding to the total aggregate.

Mental illness rates are higher in societies with more inequality, with even health among higher-income populations affected by overall levels of inequality.

It’s not enough to have ‘enough’ for yourself.

You’re harmed, in some real, tangible ways, as well as some more subtle psychological ones, by the existence of others who have far less than enough.

And less than you.

We know that from data, but we know it from our lived and practice experience too, right?

I see the anxiety around me, from parents who put their 5-year-olds in tons of activities because they want to produce ‘well-rounded scholars’ (yes, they use that phrase) to neighbors who reluctantly acknowledge that they’re in deep debt because of out-of-control spending to couples whose marriages fall apart because of the strain of overwork. I see a harsh side of inequality in the smugness of those who accept mediocrity from our public school system, secure in the knowledge that it’s still better than what other kids get.

It’s not ‘cultural’, this stress and malaise and vindictiveness.

It’s born of the proximity of desperation, and the knowledge that we are but a few ‘failures’ away from the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, which seem like such a long way down. It’s exposed by the tattered safety net and the panicking realization that there’s very little to catch us if, or when, we fall.

It’s a special kind of insecurity that can only be mitigated by building a society where everyone has enough, because we can never hoard enough for ourselves to feel safe.

And that gets me to thinking about our kids, and to facing the awareness that I cannot protect them, as long as I’m only trying to protect them.

Because I want BETTER for my kids, not better like iPads for my 3-year-olds but better like believing that people take care of each other when it’s needed, that belonging to a society comes with certain guarantees, and that no one should have too much…or too little.

2011 in Charts, and What they mean for real people

melindaklewis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:51:55 +0000

I do love a good chart.

And these, from the Economic Policy Institute’s 2011 year-in-review, tell a very important story.

But, since I’m a social worker, it’s the human side of that story that interests me the most.

So I looked through these charts with an eye towards how they would look if they could walk into our offices and ask for help.

Because, in some way, they do.

So that “job seekers ratio” becomes the person with what used to be an adequate level of education (maybe a high school diploma, maybe a few years of college, maybe even a college degree) who now finds him/herself competing against three other people, some more experienced, for the same job, and who, in the meantime, struggles to support a family. And the desperation and depression that sets in after months of unsuccessful job searching.

The more than 18% of kids who had at least one parent unemployed or underemployed in 2011? Those are the kids wearing clothes that don’t fit, and staying after in our recreation programs in hopes of some extra food. They’re the kids with anxiety attacks because they’re worried about how their parents are going to make the rent, and the ones who have a dim view of the future, already, at age 9.

The data on too few job openings? Those reflect the mothers receiving TANF who have to go through the motions of searching for jobs that just aren’t there, in order to receive the money on which their children depend. They’re the ones we’re sending the message that jumping through hoops is more important than spending time with their kids.

When your clients tell the story of their own economics, what statistics do they represent? And how can we help people to see their fortunes as connected to economic structures, and forces, in which they are absolutely not complicit? And why does untangling those data–making them visible and making them real–matter?

What can we do, in this new year, to make these charts breathe, so that policymakers understand the urgency of the lives they represent?

These kids need to eat: Why the connection between advocacy and direct services matters so much

melindaklewis — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:56:23 +0000

On October 1, 2011, our state agency charged with administering SNAP benefits (what we used to call Food Stamps) in Kansas announced a new rule that changed the way that they calculate income for mixed-status households (where some in the household are U.S. citizens and some are ineligible nonapplicants (a technical term for immigrants who can’t receive benefits and, so, are not applying for them).

It’s kind of complicated, and it was only through the incredible patience of my good friends at the National Immigration Law Center (whose expertise and willingness to pick up the phone has saved me dozens of times over the past decade) that I understood exactly how it works, but, in essence, it’s this:

Kansas now pretends that undocumented parents don’t need to eat, so we count all of the household’s income, but only count the number of family members who are eligible for food assistance. This makes it much harder for these families to qualify for SNAP, since the eligibility thresholds are based on income per size of household. None of that was really comprehensible from the initial announcement, which had some vaguely patriotic language about restoring equity and fairness to SNAP, a reference to the term “pro-rata share”, which we’d never heard before, and all kinds of assurances that there would be ample training before the new rules went into effect.

And, then, on October 4, 2011, an extremely distraught single mother of 5 children, who had recently built a safe life for her family after years of domestic violence, showed up at El Centro, Inc. with a notice that her children’s SNAP case had been closed due to “non-citizen status.” She had no idea how she was going to feed her kids without that assistance, especially so soon after leaving her abusive husband.

The good news, in this tragic mess?

She knew where to go, not just to receive some immediate assistance–connection to a food pantry, and help getting her kids signed up for school breakfast, and information about congregate meal sites–but also for some answers about why this was happening to her, and for an ally in what she knew needed to be a fight.

And, because it’s an organization that weaves advocacy into its direct services, the social worker with whom she met that day did things a bit differently, perhaps, than would some in a similar situation.

She made copies of the letter, because she knew from her advocacy training that USDA prohibits adverse action against eligible beneficiaries because of a nonapplicant’s immigration status, so, at the least, the title of that letter was unacceptable.
She asked questions, not just about what the mother intended to do now, but about what the SNAP case worker said (and didn’t), because she knew that USDA also requires disclosure about the voluntary nature of nonapplicants’ immigration information.
She got permission to share the mother’s story, not just with agencies for referral purposes, but with Office of Civil Rights investigators, with the organization’s public policy consultant, and with the media. She helped the mother write out her own story and explained how sharing her struggle would connect to future advocacy efforts.
She organized a meeting, where mothers who had had the same experience came together, learned about the new policy, and worked together to strategize about what could be done. They made posters to tell immigrants that they are not required to disclose their status if they’re not applying for benefits, and they wrote out their own testimonies, together.
She asked for help, reaching out to advocates with connections to national organizations, USDA officials, U.S. senators, influential community leaders. Together, they made a plan, which now includes not only the civil rights investigations but advocacy campaigns with members of Congress, an organized media push, and exploration of possible lawsuits.
She utilized radical practice skills to help that first mother, and the ones who poured into her office in the days to follow, understand that, just because the new rule is allowable doesn’t make it acceptable policy. She held their hands and looked into their eyes and said that it’s wrong for our country to allow children to go hungry because we don’t like their parents, and she vowed to work alongside them to make it right.
It’s an advocacy effort that is far from resolved; indeed, Kansas is just one of the first states to use this allowable option to apply more restrictive income-counting rules to mixed-status families, and they most certainly won’t be the last. It’s a struggle with an uncertain resolution and, in the meantime, children are hungry and mothers are desperate.

But there are real, concrete ways in which this whole scenario is unfolding in a far more hopeful way than it could have, and it’s because of the existence of an organization that believes that direct services make advocacy more authentic and more effective, and that only advocacy and organizing can provide a context in which direct services can succeed. One serves as a vehicle through which to collect the stories, document the evidence, and mobilize those affected. The other deploys those considerable resources in a strategy designed to bring lasting change.

Their coexistence ensures that direct services never become about placating an oppressed community, and that advocacy never forgets its reason for being.

These kids need to eat.

Happy Birthday to Me!

melindaklewis — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:06:34 +0000

So today’s my birthday.

Sam’s excited, because I’m an even number again.

And how are we celebrating?

Fighting famine.

I’m donating the $150 I get from my parents, in-laws, and grandfather-in-law–we call it “hobby money”, because it’s money that we can spend however we want, since the rest of our financial decisions are made jointly.

And, I guess, trying to keep kids from starving is my hobby.

It’s selfish, partly.

I cannot stand to see pictures of starving kids. Or to think about mothers who have to listen to their children cry in hunger, without having any food to give them.

I can’t tolerate raising my kids in a world where we let this happen.

Famine is obscene, in a world as rich as ours.

Let’s do something about it.

Can you make saving kids your hobby today, too? Or at least your birthday present to me?

Thank you, for everything.

What the new poverty data say about an old problem

melindaklewis — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:00:31 +0000

What they said...

I’ve spent the last few weeks buried in the U.S. Census Bureau’s new website, trying not to be paralyzed by the fact that the poverty statistics represent, of course, actual people who are poor.

A lot of them.

There isn’t anything truly surprising in the new data; poverty has gotten worse–dramatically so, in some cases–with people of color and children, particularly those in single female-headed households, especially vulnerable.

So, for me, reviewing these figures is not so much about gaining new insights, but about seizing an opportunity to focus our attention, once more, where it belongs–on how terribly our public policies are failing to effectively combat the scourge of poverty.

Because we’re failing not in explicable or unpredictable ways; we’re failing with tragic routine, reflecting much more a failing of political will than of technical ability.

And our failure is increasingly dangerous, as the numbers of people in poverty grow, and as we learn more about the lifelong effects of being poor.

Here’s what we know about poverty in my state in 2011. Now, what should we do about it?

Between 2009 and 2010, 20,000 more Kansans were added to the poverty ranks, and the percentage of those living in poverty rose to 14.3%. Kansans of color were disproportionately represented among the poor, with 28.6% of African Americans, 29.7% of American Indians, and 25.4% of Latinos living below the official poverty line.
Children are especially suffering in the current economic picture; nationally, 22% of children were in poverty in 2010. In Kansas, an alarming 23.7% of children under age 18 were poor in 2010, up from 18% in 2009 , a devastating decline in the fortunes of our state’s youngest and most vulnerable.
The poverty rate “gap”, then, between older adults (65+) and children has grown. In 2010, only 7.7% of Kansas seniors were poor. This is a triumph of the social policy innovation we know now as Social Security retirement; without Social Security, the percentage of Kansas seniors living in poverty would rise to more than 40%.
Work is no longer a guaranteed path to economic security. In 2010, real median household income in Kansas was $46,229, almost 5% lower than Kansas’ 2007, pre-recession median ($48,497). 27.8% of single female-headed households with children under age 18 had a householder who worked and yet, still, the family fell into poverty . In 12% of cases, these mothers were working year-round, full-time without being able to pull their families from poverty status, testament to the strains of low-wage labor and the difficult economics facing single parents raising children, particularly when they also experience the wage discrimination that still plagues female employment.
Our current poverty measure’s woeful inadequacy makes these statistics all the more alarming; if we used a more realistic threshold (such as those used to determine eligibility for means-tested programs–usually more like 125% of poverty), for example, more than 45% of single female headed-households would have been poor in Kansas in 2010. Similarly, if we accurately defined and measured unemployment (as in, people who wish they were working but aren’t, instead of only those not so discouraged that they haven’t given up or involuntarily taken a part-time job instead), our unemployment rate would hover around 12%–frighteningly high.
Appallingly, poverty in Kansas seems to be increasingly more rapidly than in other parts of the country, despite a job market that, in some ways, has not been ravaged as severely as that of other regions. While our overall poverty rate was slightly lower than the national figure, Kansas saw higher rates of child poverty and poverty in single female-headed households in 2010, and higher rates of growth between 2009-2010 in several categories.

We shouldn’t need new statistics to remind us that poverty is a dire and growing threat to community and individual well-being. We don’t need statistics to connect the dots about those we see living in homelessness, or our own coworkers’ concerns about their mortgage payments, or, even, our own fears about the precarious nature of our employment.

But we can, and, indeed, we must, use the release of these new data on poverty and its shadow–the economic insecurity that is nearly ubiquitous in today’s economy–to dedicate ourselves anew to developing public policy structures and investments that harness our considerable powers to improve people’s lives, individually and in the aggregate.

Because when the next set of poverty data is released, I want some surprises.

Personal is Political Week: Grandpa Pete and the New Economy

melindaklewis — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:38:39 +0000

That's my Grandpa Pete, about 1.5 years before he died

As an instructor, I have to be very cognizant of boundaries with my students, particularly since I’ve had kids, since everyone is understandably interested in my adorable children’s every activity (what, no?).

Still, becoming a parent has also made me even more aware of the political nature of private life, which has led to greater integration between my personal and professional selves, not less.

So, while I don’t go out for drinks with my students (even when they ask), or tell them about an argument with my husband or a particularly long day with the kids, I also don’t try to hide the fact that who I am as a person helps to shape who I am as a social worker, and an advocate for social justice.

In that spirit, this week is The Personal is Political Week on Classroom to Capitol. This week’s three posts all feature something personal about my life: my family, my parenting, and my faith, with some reflections about how those pieces of my identity influence my social work.

In addition to comments about any of these posts, I’d also love to hear from other instructors about what you disclose, and how, and how you negotiate boundaries so that students are protected from messy entanglements, while not artificially maintaining too severe a distance, so as to preclude the working relationships we know make a difference in social work education. I’d never claim to have found that perfect balance, but I’m always interested in learning!

My Grandpa Pete died in August 2010. He was 95 years old, and, while I miss him very much, he was ready to die, and so there’s a great deal of peace with the loss.

Somewhat oddly, perhaps, I’ve been thinking about him a lot over the past month, as I work on the Kansas poverty report (forthcoming from KACAP!). Thinking about our current economy, and those at risk for poverty within it, have prompted a lot of reflection on who Grandpa Pete was, what he accomplished, and how much the context of his times influenced his life options.

See, my Grandpa Pete grew up on a “farm” in rural Missouri that never really produced a lot of anything. Most of the time, the family sharecropped. He didn’t graduate from high school; the family story is that he quit because his younger sister needed money for shoes if she was to stay in school. He got a job in Kansas City, eventually working his entire career at Phillips Petroleum. I’m proud of how hard he worked, of his mangled knuckles that are testament to his physical labor, and of he and my Grandma’s sense of frugality, that I know still lives in me (no, we are never getting cable).

But I also know that jobs that pay a “family wage” (my Grandma mostly stayed home with my mom and her sister) and came with health insurance and full pension benefits, mostly aren’t available to people without high school diplomas today.

Before he died, Grandpa proudly pointed out to me the banks where he had money deposited (FDIC limits, you know), and I’ve thought of the satisfaction in his voice as I pour over statistics about how less-educated workers fare today.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not taking anything away from Grandpa Pete and what he did to say that it’s wrong not to live in an economy that makes that possible today. People who are born into poverty, as he was, should still have a real chance at economic mobility. Instead, more than 42% of those raised in the bottom income quintile today stay there as adults. And those who are low income find it almost impossible to accumulate the assets that brought my Grandpa so much comfort in his later life (if not, admittedly, a new pair of pants–there’s the frugality!); 50% of Kansans with incomes below $24,800 are “asset poor.”

Like so many of us, Grandpa Pete experienced the opportunities embedded within his world as though they were invisible. He believed that hard work, and my Grandma’s nagging about saving money, deserve the credit for his ability to leave behind the persistent want of his childhood.

And, indeed, if our economy still worked for working people, that is how it should work: opportunities for those of different skill levels to contribute to economic productivity and to be compensated fairly for that effort, in a system that shelters people from the greatest risks: disability, illness, temporary unemployment, and, in my Grandpa’s case, living more than 30 years after retirement. If the “playing field” were truly level, then people could look back on their lives as races well-run, so to speak, instead of being ever-aware of the forces that constrain their chances, from childhood through later life.

I miss his grin, and his not-so-funny “jokes”, and his advice about crop rotation.

And I like to consider my efforts to make our economy fairer, for everyone, part of my tribute to him: Grandpa Pete, you made it, and other people should be able to, too.

Strained Suburbs, and the Nonprofits who serve them

melindaklewis — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:27:01 +0000

I live in the suburbs.

It’s not the “suburbs suburbs”, in some ways: we have a one-car garage and tiny closets and, in the summer, often go several days without driving anywhere. It’s an “inner-ring” suburb, but, still, it’s the suburbs.

And what that means, increasingly, is that it’s a community dealing with some of the challenges long seen in more urban areas (and, manifested in different ways, in rural communities, too): rising poverty, declining populations, pockets of unemployment, aging infrastructure, and a strained tax base.

A paper released last fall by the Brookings Institution analyzes data about these trends in suburban parts of the country, but what, to me, is most significant about the findings is the inclusion of data on the nonprofit industry in the suburbs, too, and its overall inadequacy in meeting these rising needs (even before the cuts forced by the recession).

Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that nonprofit organizations in the suburbs have suffered even slightly more than the overall nonprofit sector, in terms of loss of funding and staff cuts. We still have a lot of denial about the reality of need in suburban communities. Perhaps especially in a recession, people cling to the idea that “at least they’re better off than those others,” and that erroneous perception can serve as ammunition to dismantle the safety nets that we really, even here, need in place.

There are now more than 1.5 million MORE poor people in the suburbs than in central cities, and it’s likely that 2010 Census data, when released this fall, will affirm that this trend continues. Yet, here in our metropolitan area, there are organizations that specifically exclude some of our suburban counties’ residents from their services (including emergency assistance). There’s only one homeless shelter in the very populated suburban county where I live; to compensate, our church participates in a sort of “roving” shelter for homeless families. And there’s still a perception, heard everywhere from the school board to the sandbox, that poverty and need live somewhere else, despite the more than 30% of kids in our school district defined as “economically disadvantaged.”

On the one hand, these statistics are discouraging, even alarming. Suburbs are a place to which families moved to pursue, among other things, prosperity and economic security.

But that’s always been an illusion, this idea that one can relocate away from the structural injustices that characterize our society. And it is now being revealed for its fragility.

That means that we’ve no other option but to conclude that they are really us, and that those problems are really ours.

And that means that our nonprofit organizations, and we as residents of suburbs or cities or rural communities, need to solve them.

Together.

Gross Injustice: State Legislatures, Inequality, and Why it will get worse

melindaklewis — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:27:32 +0000

Some social workers blog as a form of personal therapy, a way to release at least some of the frustrations and heartaches that accumulate from trying to do enough with far too little, and feeling like we’re always losing.

I don’t. I think that’s because I have the world’s most supportive husband, who finally looked at me the other day and said, “Honey, I don’t like Kris Kobach either. I didn’t vote for him. I don’t think he’s a good Secretary of State. I promise.” And I promised to keep the ranting down to a minimum.

Instead, I try to use this public space to think outloud, to process what’s always running through my head, about how problems are connected and how we can be part of the solutions, about how to build power for the people we care about, about how to leverage that power into policies that begin to approximate a just and right society. And I try, although I may not always succeed, to plant ideas, and hope, to cultivate more momentum for social justice by helping people to feel part of a community, and to contribute to the essential conversations about how we can best get there, from here.

But this one, I’ll just admit, isn’t hopeful.

See, in the Kansas Legislature this year, they went after our Earned Income Tax Credit. Yes, our state’s EITC, the same one that has been proven to be the single most effective anti-poverty policy we have, the one that “encourages work”, just like they say they want to, that has very little administrative cost (making it highly efficient), and that, every year, makes it possible for families to pay down debt and purchase reliable cars and even save a little for their futures.

The attack on Kansas’ EITC wasn’t about cost savings. If it was sheer budget balancing they were after, they would have examined the other (much larger) tax cuts from the 1998 tax package.

But no, just the comparatively small part that goes to low-income working people.

It’s bad policy. And, what’s making me even more pessimistic, today, is the realization that bad policy is what we’re likely to get, from a seriously unequal process.

Because it’s not accidental, after all, that people in poverty are the targets of Kansas’ budget reduction efforts, the same way that working people around the country are bearing the brunt of the fiscal “belt-tightening” everywhere: in threats to collective bargaining rights, elimination of funding for Community Services Block Grants, and reductions in Pell Grants. The Missouri Legislature had a bill to abolish the state’s restrictions on child labor, for crying outloud, which would have been funny if it wasn’t so ghastly. When those who make the decisions are removed from those who pay the price, it’s natural that bad things happen.

It’s the reason that my four-year-old son can’t know which ice cream bowl will be his when he’s dishing it out. He divides everything more equally behind that veil of ignorance.

And, today, our state legislatures seem more distant from the lives of real people than ever before. It was quiet, many days, in the Kansas Capitol. There’s an air of inevitability, and of resignation, that’s translating into carte blanche to destroy people’s lives. And it’s what we see in Congress, too.

I really do believe in people power, really, but this chart depressed me a ton:

Image credit, Mother Jones magazine

That kind of distance has tangible policy consequences: regardless of party affiliation, all 10 of the richest members of Congress voted to extend the Bush-era tax cuts in late 2010. And then we end up with a debate like this, which looks utterly ridiculous (and, yet, again tragic):

image credit, Center for American Progress

In state legislatures, what separates the governors from the governed is often not money; it’s a preoccupation with ideology over impact, with politics over pragmatism. That sounds cynical, I know, and I’m really not a cynic. But it’s hard to sit through a committee hearing about how “tough times call for really tough decisions” on, say, cutting Early Head Start, and then go to another committee meeting where we’re adding new administrative positions with six-figure salaries in the same cash-strapped state government, and not start to feel disenchanted.

In Kansas, we know that the worst is yet to come, and we’re probably not alone. Some of our state senators spared us from the worst of the attacks, and they’re all up for reelection in 2012. We know that they’ll be targets, and that we’ll all have to suffer through test votes designed more for campaign postcards than for real policymaking. That means more attacks on those seen as easy targets: people with mental illnesses, low-wage workers, immigrants, little kids, older adults.

Of course, you know that I can’t end a hopeless rant like this without some admonition, as much to myself as to anyone, about how all of this means that we need to work even harder, and smarter, to level the inequalities within the process, so that we can achieve far more equal results. That means working now to prepare for the 2012 elections, and it also means refusing to allow ourselves the luxury of extended bemoaning.

So this is where it stops, or, rather, starts, for me. To a far more just future.

A Political Action Committee for the poor?

melindaklewis — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:23:33 +0000

Even though I’m from Kansas, it’s not often that I find myself inspired by a quote from Bob Dole.

But, on page 148 of the really fascinating book So Damn Much Money, about the role of money in the distortion of the political process, Dole is quoted decrying the ways in which Political Action Committees (in 1982, a relatively new innovation) were influencing policy decisions:

“Poor people don’t make campaign contributions.”

Now, I grant that that’s a rather obvious statement by then-Senator Dole.

But it makes me wonder:

Should they?

What I mean is, at the same time that advocates for social justice take on the current judicial and regulatory structures that allow for such a significant infusion of money into the political process (which, of course, should absolutely be a critical advocacy issue for those who are committed to legislation that reflects the needs of now-marginalized communities), should we find a way to work within the “world as it is”, and start a “Poor People PAC”?

I know…it’s immoral to think about diverting money that could be spent on direct assistance for low-income people to campaigning for policymakers sympathetic to their needs.

Except we do it all the time when we hire fundraisers or organize special events–there we think of it as investing, spending money so we can make money.

And most of us social workers don’t object to the organization of a PAC by the National Association of Social Workers (except that it focuses more on issues of social work professional licensure and reimbursement, although there is arguably considerable overlap between those sympathetic to our profession and those committed to the issues we address).

So why not?

It doesn’t require denying the inherent problems in the system as it’s organized today, any more than registering as a lobbyist requires pretending that all lobbyists are committed to the public good.

It just says that, while the system works this way, we want it to work for the very people who need it most.

It wouldn’t take that much money, I don’t think, to begin to change the way that elected officials viewed the concerns of people in poverty and those who work with them: a few fundraisers, some well-placed $1,000 contributions, and a focus on accountability to the constituencies and the issues of those in need.

It might reinvigorate the democratic process for those who are understandably disenamored of its exclusion of those without the money to pay the “access fee”–if people in poverty interviewed candidates to decide who would get their endorsement (and their contributions), they might see themselves more legitimately as stakeholders in the process who deserve authentic representation.

What do you think? Is this an area where nonparticipation is the only ethical option? Or is a PAC for the poor an idea worth exploring?

Of economic justice and dreams unfulfilled

melindaklewis — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:27:17 +0000

When my oldest son and I were in Washington, D.C. for a vacation last fall, we passed a tour group at the Lincoln Memorial. There, we overheard the tour guide explain to his guests, “Here, a man said he had a dream. That dream came true.”

It struck me that this rather stunningly incomplete and, indeed, extraordinarily inaccurate, statement is, in fact, not that far from how many Americans perceive Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy: a sort of fuzzy, feel-good, “can’t we all just get along” dream, that, for the most part (since there aren’t many lynchings anymore, and African-Americans can use whichever public restroom they choose, and, for crying outloud, we have a black president) is a resoundingly successful piece of our country’s history. While we’re at it, much of that history counts the civil rights movement, and the gains it achieved, as a shared victory for Blacks and Whites alike, ignoring the years of violent, organized, and entrenched opposition and oppression endured by freedom fighters and ordinary folks.

I would certainly never seek to deny the tremendous progress we’ve made on racial justice, although King’s dream, as I understand it, is far from totally realized. But what I lament even more than the uncritical characterization of our society as “color-blind” is the almost complete forgetting of Dr. King’s stance on economic injustice and the violence that poverty wreaks on the lives of people of all racial backgrounds, even in this, the richest society in the world.

While not the Communist that many, including powerful figures in the U.S. government, tried to paint him, he had admittedly “anti-capitalistic feelings”, and he was as deeply troubled by unemployment, hunger, and economic desperation among African-American households and communities as by the overtly racist policies and practices to which they were subjected. He moved his entire family into a tenement in Chicago to dramatize the poor housing conditions, and, of course, he gave his life during a witness for the economic and human rights of garbage collectors in Memphis.

And that’s the part of Dr. King’s dream I’m spending the most time thinking about today, because it’s the part that we have not only failed to reach but, really, failed to keep reaching for. It’s the part that we’re all too willing to forget, to wash out of this memory we want to claim for ourselves, even though it was in the middle of this struggle that he gave his life.

This video clip features some of Dr. King’s thinking on poverty in the United States, and its evils, overlaid with video footage of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, uninsured people waiting in line for health care, and other images of economic injustice in modern-day America.

This year, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here’s to his dream.

All of it.