Cutaneous larva migrans (CLM) in a patient’s foot over the course of one week. Photos courtesy of Florida Department of Health, Duval County Epidemiology
I’ve had a struggle for the last week. It’s been a long time coming, I think, but this week has crystallized my internal battle like nothing has in quite some time. The president’s decision to end the DACA program has become a burning issue. These children, through no fault of their own, now are forced to decide what will happen to them if Congress chooses to do nothing, or the political will is not summoned to provide them some relief. At the same time, I have this article from the Guardian,
Children playing feet away from open pools of raw sewage; drinking water pumped beside cracked pipes of untreated waste; human feces flushed back into kitchen sinks and bathtubs whenever the rains come; people testing positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite that thrives on extreme poverty.
These are the findings of a new study into endemic tropical diseases, not in places usually associated with them in the developing world of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but in a corner of the richest nation on earth: Alabama.
You can probably already see where this is going but we need to have this talk. It is necessary, especially moving toward 2018 and beyond. Our own citizens are living with hookworm. Where are the slogan’s, and the outrage over the desperate poverty that most of OUR OWN citizens are facing is relegated to the back burner. I love this site. It’s been a major comfort to me during good times and bad. I love the writers, and the diaries and the grass roots organizing. But this page has a glaring blind spot, and it concerns the base of the Democratic party: African Americans, the descendants of slaves.
I’d like to have an honest conversation, though I don’t know if that’s possible but I hope. I think the time has come for the Democratic party to take a stand. Let’s be clear here: While the Latinx community may be the fastest growing minority group, Blacks are the glue that holds the Dems together. Without Black votes Dems lose.
The Democratic Party’s sense of itself and the reality of who votes for the party are somewhat different. The only ascriptive identity-based groups that reliably vote Democratic, at least at the national level, are Jews, gays and lesbians and African Americans. African Americans make up by far the biggest and most loyal of these groups, although there is some obvious overlap between the groups. Other groups such as Latinos, women, young voters and the like may, in most elections, trend Democratic, but they are not consistent parts of the demographic base. Some of these categories, such as youth and women as well as union members and lower income voters, cast a majority of votes for Democrat candidates, but this is, in many cases, largely due to the presence of African Americans in all these groups.
So what comes from this loyalty? What can Black voter expect from the Democratic party to whom they are so faithful? Hookworms. A focus on, excuse me, non-citizens. Dreamers. Frankly, it’s insulting. Even the term “Dreamer” is a slap in the face. MLK gave the Dream speech in ‘63. When was the last time the Dems called their base, the descendants of slaves, “Dreamers”?
The context of these young people’s peril is very important to understanding how we move forward. As I said when I started this diary, I’m conflicted. These kids, most or all of whom were brought here with their parents, have done nothing wrong. The sins of the father shouldn’t be held against the child. Let’s remember the context these parents brought their kids over here though. Those parents were attempting to escape the kind of desperate poverty that the base of the Ds are living in right now. They’re also fleeing the destabilization of their communities by the US government. They’re fleeing here for jobs Were are the hashtags for those people? Where are the marchers and protest signs for us?
The Democratic position is untenable. The folks that need attention the most, receive it the least. I want to have an honest conversation abut the issues that are effecting my community. This DACA thing is a real hot button issue so I hope I approached it with care an honesty. But let’s not pretend this is about those kids. This is about cheap labor. Ask good ol Mark Zuckerberg:
In the past, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended H-1B by name. “Why do we offer so few H-1B visas for talented specialists that the supply runs out within days of becoming available each year, even though we know each of these jobs will create two or three more American jobs in return?” asked Zuckerberg in April 2013. These days, he is less direct. A post this May included an explicit reference to the Dreamers protected by DACA, but made no mention of H-1B. Zuckerberg now leaves explicit support for H-1B to FWD.US, an advocacy group Facebook helped to found, and continues to support it, along with Bill Gates of Microsoft and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn. It pushed candidates during the 2016 election cycle to increase the number of H-1B visas being made available each year.
These capitalist don’t give a damn about so kid who just doesn’t want to be deported. These folks are using these undocumented folks to push their real agenda and I won’t be a part of it. You have companies like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon screaming bloody murder over these kids. Please let’s not forget their awful labor records. Please don’t pretend this company is pushing for these kids because they’ve suddenly found a conscience. This is who they are:
The new statistics released by Microsoft are disappointing at best. The company’s report to the federal government says that 76 percent of its overall workforce is male, while only 24 percent is female. 61 percent are white. 29 percent are Asian. 5 percent are Hispanic/Latino. And only 3 percent are black.
Similar to other tech companies, this gulf widens among executives. At the management level, Microsoft is largely white and male. 88 percent of the company’s executives are male, while only 12 percent are female. 81 percent of its leaders are white, while 20 percent are Asian. 3 percent are Hispanic/Latino. And one percent are black.
*emphasis mine
The American conscience has very limited capacity. Our government is not great at multitasking multiple huge issues at once. The party that is supposed to care about the poor and working class is focusing on everything but those ideals and as a result, it’s leaving behind the folks that keep them in power.
There was a recent diary on the rec list that talked about poverty. I highly recommend you read it. I’m not real familiar with the rules on linking other diaries but it should still be up. After or while you are reading it, think about this HuffPost article:
In fact, when you deduct the family car and other depreciating assets from their worth of the total 14.5 million African American homes, half of all black American households accounting for over 7 million families of three, have a total net worth of less than $1,700. While the net worth of the median white family remains near $100,000 using the same method of accounting. Yet African Americans dream on. Even the white poor have more money than most black families. Princeton University sociologist Dalton Conley has found that even white families living near the poverty line have a net worth exceeding $10,000.
Going even further into the data, a recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Corporation For Economic Development (CFED) found that it would take 228 years for the average black family to amass the same level of wealth the average white family holds today in 2016. All while white families create even more wealth over those same two hundred years. In fact, this is a gap that will never close if America stays on its current economic path. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, for each dollar of increase in average income an African American household saw from 1984 - 2009 just $0.69 in additional wealth was generated, compared with the same dollar in increased income creating an additional $5.19 in wealth for a similarly situated white household.
I’m close to saying enough is enough. The party must have a Black agenda. It must promote it first, because their base needs it most. Every other interest cannot exceed our own. And if we aren’t getting what we desperately need, we’ll have to start looking elsewhere.
