Posted on 05/26/2014 11:25:00 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
Inevitably, when you talk about white privilege someone will ask the question, “What about poor white people? What privilege do they have?”
In January 1961, John F. Kennedy was inagurated as the nation’s thirty-fifth president. In February 1961, he signed an executive order for a pilot food stamp program, one based on the model previously used during the Great Depression. During his campaign, Kennedy had spent much time in West Virginia, and according to his speechwriter Ted Sorensen, “was appalled by the pitiful conditions he saw, by the children of poverty, by the families living on surplus lard and corn meal, by the waste of human resources…. He called for better housing and better schools and better food distribution…. He held up a skimpy surplus food package and cited real-life cases of distress.” Kennedy saw people in need and used his power as president to address their crisis.
This week, the House Appropriations Committe released a draft of the 2015 Agriculture Appropriations bill. In it, $27 million is budgeted for a pilot program aimed at reducing child hunger in rural areas. “Sounds innocuous enough," writes MSNBC’s Ned Resnikoff, “except the $27 million program was actually the committee’s substitute for a White House proposal which would have allocated $30 million to child hunger across urban and rural areas.”
Resnikoff goes on to point out that this doesn’t mean children in urban areas will be completely left out of hunger reducing programs, as the “federal government spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the Summer Food Service Program, which provides meals to low-income children when school is not in session and they don’t have access to free or reduced school lunch,” and that there are specific challenges that face rural areas with regards to food insecurity. However, “the House committee’s proposal is likely to help fewer people of color than the White House proposal. And while rural areas may be unique in terms of the challenges they face, they’re not where most of America’s hungry are concentrated.”
They’re also among the whitest. “The Appalachian region,” which is where this money would go, writes Talking Points Memo’s Sahil Kapur, “is also more white (83.5 percent) than the United States overall (63.7 percent), according to the Appalachian Regional Commission—and much more so than urban areas, which have a disproportionately high share of minorities.”
It’s not that Kennedy or this current House subcommittee ever explicitly said “white hunger is more important than black hunger, white poverty is more important than black poverty.” But the seeming indifference toward black poverty, played out in their actions as elected officials, reflects the privileging of whiteness. It is indecent that any person go hungry, particularly in a country of such abundance. It is indecent to determine that some of those people are more worthy of our investment in their being fed than others. It is indecent to then pretend as if that’s not the case. All these indecencies add up to an injustice. We are a country that practices injustice as a way of life.
Yes, you can be poor and white and still benefit from white supremacy. That’s what privilege is.
Comment of the day!
True That!
A quick review of internet entries devoted to this gentleman leads one to the conclusion that the sole qualification this man has to comment on, politics, economics and racial matters is the fact he is a Negro.
Cure the problem, eliminate all government assistance !
Make your own way in this world or croak!
Where can I cash in on some of my privilege? Apparently I am getting huge benefits based on approximate skin shade. I’m missing out here. Where do I go? Is there some big White Privilege house where they’re handing out money, or jobs, or cell phones, or college degrees?
A$$HOLE! I didn’t get priority in college application, or jobs. I paid for my cell phone. No government agency sends me money.
God Bless you Norm. Hard work pays off.
His Parents couldn’t spell MICHAEL?
You are correct.
I grew up poor, raised by a single woman and so on, but among poor whites at the time, you still had high IQs sprinkled throughout and a high average IQ.
In my family, on my mother’s side it was a background of sharecroppers and fruit pickers and the usual, but while few of them were interested in big money careers and did things like the military, and the regular Joe jobs, that IQ was always there, the book reading, the interest in history, the under achieving Mensa members.
When I look at those old photos of the sod house pioneers, and the 1930s poor, I still see people who when the got involved in something could bring that IQ to bear, could become Colonels and Generals and Doctors, and Business owners and politicians and TV repair shop owners, all without affirmative action, and they had a good labor pool to man their enterprises, people with good average IQs and decent educations even if it was only the 8th grade, and a foundation of history, patriotism, and religion.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Libs LIE! It’s genetic, I think.
I remember when the tax off a dime was removed. 1970 or so.
That was a blessing to a child that counted pennies with the best of em’.
Per my Father when I was 13 Years Old, “nobody owes you a living, so shut up and get back to work”.
Applies to all Races, Creeds and Colors.
I swear, if I wasn’t a racist before, I likely will be before all this is over.
This is Free Republic. We worked hard and studied when given the chance. We believe in the USA.
Everything going on right now is taking it away. I truly despise our government for not understanding what has made them.
That title is a hoot. Thank God rich people were throwing bottles out of their cars in the 70’s. 15c for a 24oz. 10c for a 16oz.
I became a privileged white millionaire; or sumthin’.
I am getting tired of these asshats and it won’t be friendly.
In the 60’s my ‘allowance’ consisted of what amount of money I could earn from trade-in’s on bottle return fees.
Lazy lefties have no idea what we had as children.
We had food
We had a roof
We had FAMILY.
We made it happen and never wanted the government near us.
Times have changed.
Exactly, and that includes crony capitalists and too big to fail banks. One system of justice for every citizen.
I’m with you. I wasn’t poor growing up but I was already thrifty. Half the Jr. High walked to several stores to get their chips and sodas for lunch and just dropped their soda bottles. As soon as school was out I was out there retracing the routes and picking up the bottles. I always had money.
Good one...
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