Tomgram: Liz Theoharis, You Only Get What You're Organized to Take
Is there an American problem that hasn’t been made far worse by the spread of Covid-19 and a “leadership” in Washington that couldn’t lead itself out of anywhere whatsoever? Any places that were previously crowded, underfunded, and undertended -- prisons, nursing homes, assisted living centers, homeless shelters, poor hospitals, the poorest neighborhoods(disproportionately filled with Latinos and blacks) -- have found themselves under a coronaviral siege of the first order and without an empathetic Trump tweet in sight. Jobs have gone down the drain; government aid has been siphoned in a striking fashion to large corporations (laying off staggering numbers of people); poor children, no longer even getting their lunches at school, are suffering from a fierce new round of hunger (without significant government aid); and that’s just to start down such a list in what still passes (though you’d never know it) for the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet.
Meanwhile the president, in a pandemic moment, has decided that it’s crucial to withdraw from the World Health Organization and attack Twitter for tagging a couple of his bizarre tweets. The man who's had his knee on the American neck for months now has dealt with a racist police killing in Minneapolis and the reaction to it by tweeting out “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase created by a racist Miami police chief in 1967 and probably last mouthed by George Wallace, the infamous segregationist candidate for president, in 1968.
We're watching the “birth” (as in birtherism) of a new (which means old) version of America. Under siege and facing a brutal pandemic, in the midst of protests and rioting over George Floyd's killing, this country’s forever wars have truly come home in grotesque ways. In that context, anyone capable of imagining a future in which a new and better America might be born is a champ and TomDispatch regular Liz Theoharis qualifies big time. Co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and author of Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor in a country that has, in this century, become ever more of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich, she offers us a glimpse of what a future organized by those experiencing the worst of this moment might look like. Tom
Meanwhile the president, in a pandemic moment, has decided that it’s crucial to withdraw from the World Health Organization and attack Twitter for tagging a couple of his bizarre tweets. The man who's had his knee on the American neck for months now has dealt with a racist police killing in Minneapolis and the reaction to it by tweeting out “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase created by a racist Miami police chief in 1967 and probably last mouthed by George Wallace, the infamous segregationist candidate for president, in 1968.
We're watching the “birth” (as in birtherism) of a new (which means old) version of America. Under siege and facing a brutal pandemic, in the midst of protests and rioting over George Floyd's killing, this country’s forever wars have truly come home in grotesque ways. In that context, anyone capable of imagining a future in which a new and better America might be born is a champ and TomDispatch regular Liz Theoharis qualifies big time. Co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and author of Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor in a country that has, in this century, become ever more of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich, she offers us a glimpse of what a future organized by those experiencing the worst of this moment might look like. Tom
Organizing the Rich or the Poor?
Which America Will Be Ours After the Pandemic?
By Liz Theoharis
In the summer of 1995, when I was 18, I started visiting Tent City, a temporary encampment in an abandoned lot in northeast Philadelphia. About 40 families had taken up residence in tents, shacks, and other makeshift structures. Among them were people of various races, ages, and sexual orientations, all homeless and fighting for the right to live.
Tent City was set up by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), a grassroots organization of poor and homeless people and a chapter of the National Welfare Rights Union. As in so many other areas of the country, homelessness in Philadelphia, a city battered by decades of deindustrialization, job loss, and affordable housing cuts, had become endemic. Although they were still living in what had once been the center of the northeast industrial corridor, many in Philly, especially the residents of Kensington, had been reduced to two main sources of income: welfare and drugs. A teenager might have stood better odds of going to jail or being shot than graduating from Kensington High. More than 40% of the population in the area had to break the lawsimply to survive. Police brutality was rampant.
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