Black Americans Under Attack

By Amaad Rivera, Black Agenda Report. Posted September 5, 2007.

People of color and the poor of this country are under attack, and they are losing. It is a fact that must move us toward collective action and a call for accountability on the part of our government. Forty years ago, Martin Luther King declared that the Vietnam War was, in actuality, a war on the American poor. He eloquently stated, "It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both Black and white -- through the poverty program[s]. There were experiments, hopes, [and] new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad with war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continue to draw men and skills like some demonic destructive suction tube."

Looking at the current situation in our country the war in Iraq -- we must come to a similar conclusion. Muhammad Ali's statement resonates today as it did during the Vietnam era: "If I thought going to war would bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn't have to draft me. I'd join tomorrow."

King articulates in later speeches that war is not the only activity that damages the foundation of the American dream for the most disfranchised -- the poor and Black. It is aided and abetted by economic exploitation and racism. In essence, the poor and the Black are under attack by a triple threat.

With an eye on the past and a vision for the future, we have to look at the current political and social climate of this country with holistic criticism and calls for change. At this moment, we have spent $384 billion on the war in Iraq. This summer we saw the dismantling of the historic Brown v. Board of Education court decision. This year we heard the housing bubble pop with one of the highest foreclosure rates in history. And today we feel the effects of having the largest disparities between the wealthy and the poor since the Great Depression, 78 years ago.

In the aftermath of these attacks -- by high war spending, structural racism and economic exploitation we can see that the economic well-being of the poor and Blacks is the greatest casualty.

The exorbitant amount of money spent on the war in Iraq is draining our country's ability to provide quality anti-poverty programs to alleviate the growing economic stresses on the poor. In Massachusetts alone, $12.9 billion has been spent on the war. With that same amount of tax revenue, Massachusetts could have had 1,338,788 scholarships for university students; 44,755 new affordable housing units; 966 new elementary schools, and a slew of new healthcare coverage for children and individuals. This war is happening at the cost of our most marginalized people and our future generations.

As a country, we need to look at the structural racism that persists in our legal system and public policies. Two years after Katrina, many homes are still not rebuilt. Individuals and families remain displaced. Promises made by our government have not been kept. Diversity policies in colleges are being eliminated and only three percent of the poorest of this country attend the wealthiest top universities, even though more have appropriate qualifications. Only 30 percent of Blacks go on to college. Blacks are six times as likely as whites to have been imprisoned at some point in their lives; according to the 2004 State of the Dream report issued by United for a Fair Economy, One out of three Black males will be imprisoned during their lifetime. The weapon of structural racism in our legal and public policy system is incredibly destructive. It continues to limit the economic mobility of people of color.

See more stories tagged with: war, race, poverty, inequality, structural racism

Amaad Rivera is Racial Wealth Divide Initiative Leader for United for a Fair Economy. United for a Fair Economy (UFE) spotlights the growing economic divide in the U.S. and leads the Racial Wealth Divide initiative at UFE.

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