Submitted by Jim Neal on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 12:14am.
The "Rashoman moment" Bob described in his article occured during an exchange between Ferrel Guillroy and me. I respect Ferrel's deep knowledge of southern politics. I posited that in reality the traditional measures of poverty are somewhat antiquated. In 1969 about 20% of North Carolinians lived in poverty; today, the figure is around 17%- and one out of every four children in our state live in poverty.
To truly appreciate poverty one needs to go into communities and see it, smell it, breathe it and hear it. People aren't statistics- and the statistical differences haven't moved the dial in a meaningful way. All the bonhomie and self-congratulatory back-patting obscure the reality that there are dead bodies on the battlefield, corpses rotting and legions left for dead.
It's immoral and an abject failure on the part of me, you, other citizens of our state and a lack of leadership by the political establishment. By all counts, poverty in NC is going to get even worse. There is a humanitarian crisis in our state. It's only exacerbated by focusing on what was, as opposed to what can be.
The poor don't vote. They don't contribute. They lack political power. Hope and faith can only sustain them so far. It's time to roll up our shirtsleeves, architect new strategies, bring the faces of poverty front and center and exert pressures on those entrenched interests which stymie progress.
As Bob notes, the NAACP's Rev. Barber is organizing a bus tour through eastern NC this summer. The stars of that tour will be the voices and faces of poverty: black, white, male and female, children and the working poor. Stay tuned. Bringing those faces into the living rooms of North Carolinians is a start.
The Rashoman Moment
The "Rashoman moment" Bob described in his article occured during an exchange between Ferrel Guillroy and me. I respect Ferrel's deep knowledge of southern politics. I posited that in reality the traditional measures of poverty are somewhat antiquated. In 1969 about 20% of North Carolinians lived in poverty; today, the figure is around 17%- and one out of every four children in our state live in poverty.
To truly appreciate poverty one needs to go into communities and see it, smell it, breathe it and hear it. People aren't statistics- and the statistical differences haven't moved the dial in a meaningful way. All the bonhomie and self-congratulatory back-patting obscure the reality that there are dead bodies on the battlefield, corpses rotting and legions left for dead.
It's immoral and an abject failure on the part of me, you, other citizens of our state and a lack of leadership by the political establishment. By all counts, poverty in NC is going to get even worse. There is a humanitarian crisis in our state. It's only exacerbated by focusing on what was, as opposed to what can be.
The poor don't vote. They don't contribute. They lack political power. Hope and faith can only sustain them so far. It's time to roll up our shirtsleeves, architect new strategies, bring the faces of poverty front and center and exert pressures on those entrenched interests which stymie progress.
As Bob notes, the NAACP's Rev. Barber is organizing a bus tour through eastern NC this summer. The stars of that tour will be the voices and faces of poverty: black, white, male and female, children and the working poor. Stay tuned. Bringing those faces into the living rooms of North Carolinians is a start.