The War on Poverty?

Attended the "War on Poverty 2.0: The Urban Challenge" forum presented last night by City Limits Magazine at the Museum of the City of NY.

I have a lot to say about it, and about who was seated on the dais to present. For now by simply correcting the forum's title, I will keep my comments short.

There is NO war on poverty. There is only a War on Poor People.

I was unaplogetically disruptive.

Listening to that rhetoric so insensed me, I can't even recall my exact words. All I know is that they followed a politer-than-me sister's in the audience. She was the first to interrupt the "blah-blah-wonders of Race to the Top--series of data sets, we have terrific collaborations with [mega-billionaire] foundations, blah-blah-blah" non-news stating the obvious. Did they REALLY need the data to tell them that if a family is unemployed and homeless, and their high school age student is a truant, sooner rather than later-- if he's Black-- he will have trouble with the police?

Not surprisingly, no one on the dais could speak about poverty first-hand. No one on the dais even had a tan— if you get my drift.

After the HUD official (a young Mr. Tate) defensively shared with us— not once, but twice— that he grew up in an "impoverished area" of Arizona (?), the Marcy Avenue Mad-vocate in me shouted out that I didn;t need to hear about his White male privilege and he had nothing of merit to tell my Black & Puerto RIcan son about how he COULD climb up out of poverty.

The temperature in the room changed then. If you were there, then you know what I mean.

I am still challenged to think about last night without ire. Writing coherently when this pissed-off is just not happening.

Check back for more details on the WAR. . .