April 4th 2008 06:49 pm
It is shameful
Bitch Ph.D. has a good post about what’s still awful, terrible and decidedly no good about the supposed racial equality American’s currently have. You really should go read the whole thing, but I want to highlight one small portion that doesn’t have anything to do with race, but instead only poverty, that we define the poverty line at an income of less than $21,027 per year for a family of four.
Let me repeat that in bold: the poverty line is $21,027 per year for a family of four.
That’s totally insane. I know what it’s like to live earning about that much, but I had roommates whose income that isn’t lumped into my approximate figure, and I had parents who owned their home, so I had fall back economic actions, if needed. Telling someone that they don’t fit the definition of poverty if they made $22,000 in the last year and they only support 2 other people (assuming I don’t have my head up my ass with respect to the poverty line definition) is deeply, deeply fucked up and wrong.
Now, to get back to the race bit, because that’s also of great importance, how can we even begin to accept that 33% of black children are living below the poverty line. I don’t have words.
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