Guardian: We need racial justice and economic justice. We can’t breathe if we can’t eat

[villager]

by Hannah Giorgis

There is nothing more expensive in America than being poor.

Poverty is the quiet, quotidian violence not easily captured in live streams and news feeds. It rarely strikes with a flashy bang, manifesting more often as the slower destruction of accumulated theft.

Since the death of Freddie Gray after being in the custody of Baltimore law enforcement, the city’s residents have come together to protest both the injustice of Gray’s last moments and the broader series of everyday horrors of which it is only one part. This civilian uprising occurs against and because of the backdrop of Baltimore’s economic abandonment, which has left its primarily black residents vulnerable not only to police violence, but also to a dangerous lack of basic human services like water and affordable housing.

Baltimore’s schools remain underfunded even though almost 85% of the city’s students come from households with incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches. The impossible constraints the city’s residents must grapple with are as unique as they are emblematic of economic injustice facing all black people in the US. Too often, economic discrimination (or the threat of it) heightens the violent targeting of black individuals and communities by law enforcement.

When black people are incarcerated at impossibly high rates, private prison companies and state governments both stand to profit. That profit motive accelerates state violence across the country. Ferguson’s police violence and open hostility toward black residents were part and parcel of a law enforcement practice that prioritized the extraction of revenue from its citizens over public safety needs. Horror stories of thousands of dollars accrued in fines, days spent in jail and jobs lost as a result are not an anomaly; they are simply the accumulated, mundane discrimination against which black residents have no readily accessible recourse.

In New York, the dubious “resisting arrest” charge is a hallmark of the “Broken Windows” policing strategy that targets low income communities of color for petty offenses. Used most often to stamp people viewed as inherently criminal with an arbitrary arrest record, “resisting arrest” – or simply, existing while black – can cost someone up to one year in jail and thousands of dollars in fines.

Arrest records, even when they don’t lead to sentencing, can dramatically reduce someone’s chances of attaining an education or stable employment. For black people, who are already pushed out of the workforce by so many other factors, an arrest incurred for simply “pissing off police” can be the difference between having a job and starving.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/30/racial-justice-economic-justice-baltimore-we-cannot-breathe-if-we-cannot-eat

[merrily]

1. Being poor in America is expensive. Very true, yet I never would have thought of it in those terms.

Addressing economic discrimination is a multi-pronged struggle that affects every arena of black life; our lives are informed by the complex, violent circumstances that shape black oppression. There is no racial justice without economic justice: we can’t breathe if we can’t eat.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. No.

Just this morning, on DU, I read a post which indicated that economic justice is only a concern for the top 10%, who are jealous of the top 1% or some such truth.

[villager]

4. i think 1%ers love people fighting over them as "separate"

Quite a successful meme they developed there

[romanic]

3. Nailed it.

.