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opinion Where Do We Go From here? “Challenging People to Shape a Better future now” B ernie f OSTer Founder/Publisher B OBBie d Ore f OSTer executive editor T ed B ankS advertising Manager J errY f OSTer account executive l iSa l OvinG news editor H elen S ilviS Multimedia editor d avid k idd graphic Designer M OniCa J. f OSTer Seattle office Coordinator J Ulie k eefe S USan f ried Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 the Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub - lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of the Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2011 the Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. knowing What’s important Can Change Your life! Subscribe to The Skanner – don’t miss an issue! Please sign me up for: q 1 year $74 q 2 year $140 New Subscription q Renewal ___________________ name “T here is nothing new we are normalizing about poverty. What is C Hild W aTCH poverty, child hunger, and new, however, is that homelessness, and creat- we now have the resources to get Marian Wright ing historic income, rid of it. Not too many years ago, Edelman wealth, and mobility gaps Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard that threaten to destroy geologist, wrote a book entitled the American dream? If Enough and to Spare. He set forth the qualification for indi- the basic theme that famine is vidual and national great- wholly unnecessary in the modern ness is genuine concern world. Today, therefore, the ques- for the ‘least of these,’ too tion on the agenda must read: Why many of our political leaders and citizens should there be hunger and privation in any land, in are failing. any city, at any table, when man has the resources and As our nation pauses for the national hol- the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with iday celebrating Dr. King’s birthday, I hope we will not spend it just listening to speech- es praising Dr. King but instead will heed and act on his words. When will we hear what Dr. King declared in 1967—“the time has come for an all-out world war against poverty”—and work to win the first victory right here at home in the richest nation on earth? Is it possible to overcome our deficit in human will, or is the fact that we have already squandered so much time and still have so far to go a reason to give up? Dr. King’s voice guides the basic necessities of life?” us if we are willing to take Forty-five years ago this month, Dr. Martin Luther the next step and use it as a King, Jr. took a very rare sabbatical at an isolated road map for action. In house in Jamaica far away from telephones and the Where Do We Go from constant pressures of his life as a very public civil Here?, as he reflected on rights leader to write what would become his last what direction the struggle book: “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or for civil rights and social justice should take Community?” The excerpt above feels as though it next, he shared a story about the need to could have been written yesterday. Professor commit to difficult struggles for the long Mather’s book arguing that mankind had achieved the haul. Dr. King described a flight he had ability to move beyond famine was published in 1944, taken from New York to London years ear- but in 2012, despite nearly seventy more years of lier in an older propeller airplane. The trip unparalleled advances both in scientific and techno- took nine and a half hours, but on the way logical capability and in global resources and wealth, home, the crew announced the flight from hunger and want are still rampant. Back then Dr. King When Dr. King died in 1968 calling for a Poor People’s Campaign, there were 25.4 million poor Americans, including 11 million poor children. Today there are more than 46 million Americans living in poverty, including 16.4 million poor children wrote: “There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will… The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.’” When Dr. King died in 1968 calling for a Poor People’s Campaign, there were 25.4 million poor Americans, including 11 million poor children. Today there are more than 46 million Americans living in poverty, including 16.4 million poor children. The question of why we still allow poverty and hunger to exist—and the answer—remain the same: The deficit in human will. As another political season gets into full swing in the United States, a new crop of candidates are mak- ing a lot of promises about their competing visions of America. But how many TV debates are focusing on whether America is a compassionate nation? How many stump speeches are saying how shameful it is that last year more Americans relied on food stamps to eat than at any time since the program began in 1939? How many are responding to Occupy Wall Street’s outcry about the morally obscene gulf between rich and poor in our nation where the 400 highest income earners made as much as the com- bined tax revenues of 22 states in 2008? Which PACs are running commercials to remind Americans that ______________ address ______________ City ______________ State Mail with check or money order to: The Skanner P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 London back to New York would take twelve and a half. When the pilot came out to visit the cabin, Dr. King asked him why. “‘You must understand about the winds,’ he said. ‘When we leave New York, a strong tail wind is in our favor, but when we return, a strong head wind is against us.’ Then he added, ‘Don’t worry. These four engines are capable of battling the winds.’” Dr. King concluded: “In any social revo- lution there are times when the tail winds of triumph and fulfillment favor us, and other times when strong head winds of disap- pointment and setbacks beat against us relentlessly. We must not permit adverse winds to overwhelm us as we journey across life’s mighty Atlantic; we must be sustained by our engines of courage in spite of the winds. This refusal to be stopped, this ‘courage to be,’ this determination to go on ‘in spite of’ is the hallmark of any great movement.” Today we need to rev up our engines of courage, battle against the fierce head winds of economic downturn, unemployment, poverty, and greed that threaten to undo the Caldwell’s, Hennessey, Goetsch & McGee Funeral Home Von D. Bailey Funeral Director 20 NE 14th Avenue Portland, OR 97232 503-232-4111 Fax 503-231-1586 von.bailey@sci-us.com Page 6 The Portland Skanner January 18, 2012 progress of the last fifty years, and stay true to the course Dr. King set for us. Now is the time to end child poverty and hunger in America. Marian wright edelman is the President of the Children’s Defense Fund.
