6A
NEWS^e Charlotte $o«t
Thursday, April 6, 2005
Protests planned for presidential visit
Continued from page 1A
FoUowii^ the rules of the
law is what Move On leader
Diane Frederick wants to see
the administration do in tiie
Middle East.
“In my opinion the country
has been at war, but we must
abide by the constitution,”
she said. “Eight now we are
in a war on terror where
there is no actual enany We
are trying to bring attention
to the budget strategy that
we think is unfair, and we’re
pushing our representatives
on an exit strategy fiom Iraq.
We don’t like the direction of
the coxmtry and we would
hke a change.”
Frederick said her organi
zation, which will protest at
the comer of Elizabeth and
Independence, will probably
field fewer numbers durir^
this week’s demonstration.
“I plan to pull about 20 of
o\ir folks along with the pro
gressive groups such as Code
Pink, and David’s group,”
Frederick said. ‘We basically
mobilize people thro\^i the
internet. It’s non-partisan.”
Maggie Davis of the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg chap
ter of Code Pink wants to see
the Bush administration
place more fimding into more
needy areas.
‘We are calling for the with
drawal of troops, for the
funds to fight the war to be
Health center changes name, but not
commitment to low-income care
Continued from page 1A
Williams along with Dr.
John Murphy, Peggy
Beckwith and Rowe Jack
Motley invested in the center
and petitioned the
Department of Health and
Human Services to estabHsh
the colter under the Pubhc
Health Service Act.
“The only Afiican American
funded program at the time
was for sickle ceU anemia,”
said Beckwith. “And that pro
gram was stared in 1978. The
four of us decided that this
was die foundation that we
would launch the process
with.”
The center offers several
special programs, including a
homeless health care initia
tive, mammography screen
ing and an obstetrics/gynecol
ogy program.
In Mecklenburg County,
74,295 people are uninsured
and 73,965 receive Medicaid
benefits - the demographic
the center targets. Of the
center’s 10,888 chents, 27
percent are uninsiu'ed and 42
Whatever became of post-Katrina
national dialogue on poverty?
By Allen G. Breed
ViE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Don’t teU die Rev Randall Mitchell that
Hurricane Katrina somehow opened people’s
eyes to the depdi of poverty in this nation.
Americans knew the extent of the problan.
long before the storm, he says.
They’d just learned to live with it.
“They’ve come into acceptance of it,” the
preacher says fium the apartment he evacuat
ed to, in Dayton, Ifexas, 300 miles west of New
Orleans. No, rather than revealing poverty to
Ameiicans, he says, the storm “exposed ... the
people who maintain it. That’s all.”
When Katrina stnick Aug. 29, thousands of
people who had not known loss suddenly knew
what it was like to be homeless and jobless. Tb
taste hunger and feel thirst. Tb go without
medical care or even toilets.
And those who didn’t experience the misery
and chaos firsthand saw it in graphic detail
every day and ni^t on television. The desper
ate, angry masses at the Supeixiome and con
vention center. The rampant looting. The float-
ir^ bodies.
With much of New Orleans stUl under water,
President Bush stood before the stately St.
Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square and
declared the nation had "a duty to confix)nt
this poveiTy with bold action.”
Katrina was the catadysmic event that was
supposed to laxmch a vigorous “national dia
logue on poverty” It didn’t happen, many say
“From my perspective, it’s kind of like one
hand dapping,” says Maria Foscarinis, execu
tive director of the National Law Center on
Homelessness and Poverty ‘We’d love to have
a dialogue, but there needs to be someone to
have a dialogue with.”
Not long after Katrina struck, the Census
Bureau released figures showing that the
poverty rate had climbed for the fourth
straight year. More than 37 million Americans
live below the federal povoTy level (defined as
an income of $19,000 for a family of four),
induding 12 milHon children.
Five milhon of those children live in families
Ex-olfenders criticize government
attempts to help illegal immigrants
By Hazel Trice Edney
NA^10NAL^EWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON - Chuck
Richardson looks at the
debate over immigration
fi^Dm a special perspective.
He’s seen the demonstration
by 500,000 marchers in Los
Angeles. He’s heard members
of Cor^ress discuss granting
amnesty to people who will
fully violated this nation’s
laws. And he has even heard
President Bush advocate a
“guest worker” program lhat
is most likely to pave the way
for future U.S. dtizenship.
Richairison has a different
take on immigration because
he is an ex-offendei*, having
served two years in prison in
the mid-1990s for a non-vio
lent diTig offense. As he lis
tens to the debates, he doesn’t
hear anyone advocating for
his cause. He is a U. S. dtizen,
he has paid the penalty for
breaking the law, he is now a
pixnluctive dtizen, yet he
won’t be able to eiyoy some of
the privileges that 11 to 12
million undocumented work
ers win have if certain legis
lation passes the House and
Senate and is signed into law
by President Bush.
“It seems almost xmcon-
sdonable that people who are
here illegally and considered
to be criminals can be foigiv-
en and given anything dose
to U. S. dtizenship without
any ramifications whatsoev
er. And yet we have men and
women who have fought for
fh.eir covmtiy, have served
their time in jail, have repaid
thdr debt to sodety and are
still shackled by the felony
dassification which deprives
us of most American rights;”
sa5^ Chuck Richardson, a
decorated Vietnam veteran
and founding president of the
Richmond, Va.-based
National Organization for
Rehabilitated Offenders.
Many of the 5 million ex
offenders - induding 1.4 mil-
used to rebuild Iraq and the
devastated areas of the
United States, because we
are wasting money on a war
that is not working,” she said.
percent of them receive
Medicaid.
Charlotte Mayor Pro Tbm
Susan Burgess said it is
important to provide health
care services to every one in
the community regardless of
insurance coverage.
“All of our people have
health issues and this is one
place they can come and get
care. For the past 25 years it’s
played a very important role
in our community,” she said.
On the net:
yvmvrn^viUiamsx>rg
that earn less than half the poverty level.
Jane Knitzer, director of the National Center
for Children in Poverty, says it's not so much
that Americans don’t know that poverty exists.
They just don’t want to think about it, because
it’s just too hard.
“Very often people feel that there’s no solution
to poverty, that’s it’s intractable,” she says. "It’s
a secret nobody wants to deal with.”
But how big a secret, really?
Stanford University researchers Emily Ryo
and David Grusky hearii^ pundits insist that
Katrina “unleashed a newfound commitmait
among the public to take on issues of poverty
and inequality” decided to measure tins sup
posed awareness-raisir^ effect.
The researchers analyzed data fi-om
Syracuse University’s Maxwell Polls on Civic
Engagement and Inequality conducted in 2004
and shortly after Katrina. Ryo and Grusky
divided respondents based on their answers to
detailed questions on their attitudes toward
poverty They created four basic categories:
"activists,” “realists,” “moralists,” and
"deniers.”
Activists, defined as those who support state
intervention to reduce poverty went fi^Dm 58
percent of respondents in the 2004 survey to 60
percent post-Katrina; and there were small
gains for deniers, who believe poverty and
inequahty are "neither substajitial nor grow
ing” (fi^m 21 percent to 25), and for moralists',
who see poverty as a motivator, not a social
problem (firolii near zero to 1 percent).
The most dramatic gain was among so-called
lealists, who don’t believe in the state’s ability
to reduce poverty or inequality, their numbers
nearly doubled to 11 percent.
Interpreting the findings, Grusky, a professor
of sociology says they show a majority of peo
ple already accepted that there was a problem
and were doing something about it. The rest,
he says, either see poverty as an individual
problem or simply don’t care.
“This idea that it’s a dirty little secret, this
poverty and inequality” he says, ‘just doesn’t
pass muster.”
Hon Afiican-Americans -
share Richardson’s fiustra-
tion. It’s not tiiat Richardson
has anythir^ against immi
grants who come to the U. S.
in search of a better life. He
doesn’t want to be left behind.
In fact, he favors a “package
deal” that would accommo
date both undocumented
workers and ex-offenders.
“Otherwise, tins would be a
judicial abomination,” he
argues.
Many of those arguing on
behalf of imdocumented
workers agree with
Richardson.
“We believe, no matter who
you are, if you are willing to
pay the price and serve your
time; then you should have
the opportunity for redemp
tion and for a chance to
become a part of society
again,” says Lisa Navarrete,
a spokeswoman for the
National Covmdl of La Raza,
a Washington, D.C.-based
non-profit.
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