Amazon.com

(Note: I finally got around to writing a response to this article. The revised blog post is being re-published as a new entry.)

This is the kind of uninformed vitriol that makes addressing poverty in the USA unnecessarily difficult.

In an appearance Monday on Fox, Sheriff Clarke, who is African-American, offered his explanation for the major cause of riots in Milwaukee and other cities: “You know what encourages this? The growth of the welfare state. These are underclass behaviors. Seventy percent of the kids born in Milwaukee … are born without an engaged father in their life. So I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side and say ‘you’re not needed.’ Uncle Sam is going to be the dad, he’s going to provide for the kids, he’s going to feed the kids … Uncle Sam has been a horrible father. Uncle Sam does not love these kids. He might keep a little food in their mouths and that is about it. But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape the behavior of kids.”

Of course, it is unsurprising that this appeared on FOX News. But, media biases aside, what this man is saying is that community networks have broken down and that needs to change.

Um…YES!…liberals and anti-poverty activists have been saying exactly that for decades. In fact, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (Quotes from this books can be found HERE)  clearly illustrates the way that a lack of universal healthcare, widespread poverty (particularly mostly through disturbingly common low-wage jobs), the crash caused by predatory lending within the banking system, the actions of predatory landlords and…ultimately…relatively recently established culture of evict-take everything-and-forced movement has resulted in the breakdown of all kinds of community networks. In short: people unable to land in a physical location they can call home are significantly less capable of creating and maintaining relationships with other people.

A young African-American man found by a TV camera during the weekend riot said: “The rich people, they got all this money, and they not … trying to give us none.” Really? All of that tax money spent on anti-poverty programs for the last 50 years never trickled-down to him? This poisonous attitude has been promoted by progressives and has not helped the poor rise above their circumstances.

What is it about right-wing conservatives constantly refusing to evaluate the actions of the rich? If you have money you are without blame. Challenging the lack of financial opportunities available to specific communities is automatically proof that the individual asking the question is lazy or trying to ‘work the system.’ There is something inherently wrong with that level of blind-faith in a select community of people based on financial resources alone.

This young man should talk to Sheriff Clarke about changing his attitude. Some self-evaluation and an internal re-adjustment would do more for him than any anti-poverty program the Democrats could dream up.

The only anti-poverty program the conservatives have ever developed is this: take away everything and toss the low lifes out into the street. If they die of starvation, exposure or violence, so much the better – fewer people and more stuff for us!

If the right-wing ever took the time to actually acknowledge the problem and TRY to address it, they might see just how real and difficult and complicated (and directly related to the actions and decisions of wealthy people) this issue is.

They also might find more poor people coming their way. But, those people would be lower-class people and…well…that’s not who they are, what they do or how they operate.

–Thomas: Sheriff David Clarke speaks truth, Clarion-Ledger, Cal Thomas, Syndicated columnist, August 19, 2016