Looting New Orleans and America's Poverty Crisis (BlackNews.com)

[undergroundrailroad]

Looting New Orleans and America's Poverty Crisis

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, BlackNews.com Columnist

Two things happened in one day that tell much about the abysmal failure of the Bush administration to get a handle on poverty in America. The first was the tragic and disgraceful shots of hordes of New Orleans residents scurrying down the city's Hurricane ravaged streets with their arms loaded with food, clothes, appliances, and in some cases guns, that they looted from stores and shops.

That same day, the Census Bureau released a report that found that the number of poor Americans has leaped even higher since Bush took office in 2000. While criminal gangs who always take advantage of chaos and misery to snatch and grab whatever they can, did much of the looting, many desperately poor, mostly black residents, saw a chance to grab items that they can't afford. They also did their share of the looting. That makes it no less reprehensible, but it's no surprise.

New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates of any of America's big cities. According to a report by Total Community Action, a New Orleans public advocacy group, nearly one out of three New Orleans residents live below the poverty level, the majority of who are black. A spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund noted that the city's poor live in some of the most dilapidated, and deteriorated housing in the nation.

But New Orleans is not an aberration. Nationally, according to Census figures, blacks remain at the bottom of the economic totem pole. They have the lowest media income of any group. Bush's war and economic policies don't help matters. His tax cuts redistributed billions to the rich and corporations. The Iraq war has drained billions from cash starved job training, health and education programs. Increased American dependence on Saudi Oil has driven gas and oil prices skyward. Corporate downsizing, outsourcing, and industrial flight have further fueled America's poverty crisis. All of this happened on Bush's watch.

The 2 million new jobs in 2004 Bush touts as proof that his economic policies work have been mostly smoke and mirrors number counting. The bulk of these jobs are low pay jobs, with minimum benefits, and little job security in retail and service industries. A big portion of the nearly 40 million Americans that live below the official poverty line fill these jobs. They're the lucky ones. They have jobs. Many young blacks, such as those that ransacked stores in New Orleans, don't.

[Swamp Rat]

1. "All of this happened on Bush's watch." - Yes.

[undergroundrailroad]

2. Yes it did and when HELL was occurring in NYC on 911, he read a children's

book to a group of students. This is all very nice but it was NOT the priority at the moment. Now HELL is occurring in LA, Mississippi and AL. This man is clearly incapable of running the United States.

Poverty is ugly and it all happened on HIS watch!! He's had his second chance, it's time to impeach! Now what brave person is going to suggest it?

[msgadget]

3. The only dem

has been Edwards as far as I'm aware. I've been horrified - simply sick - at the sight of all those black people left homeless and even more so when the looting done by them is viewed as criminal but by others as stealing out of necessity.

Almost immediately it seems to be a race and class issue and I wonder how that will affect the quality of support the poor of these states receive. I'm usually angry, I'll admit that, but I'm not so much angry today as I am heartsick. I can muster no righteous indignation toward one politiican or group. Instead, I feel the nation as a whole has failed its most vulnerable.

But - and I have to stick this in - there has been so very much to rail against these last five or so years that the criticism the article directs at the NAACP may be misplaced. Seriously, we've had a LOT to be pissed about these last two terms and an age-old thing like poverty usually settled toward the bottom of the list. That's not in any way an excuse but an unfortunate reality the poorest among us are paying for now.