The skanner., December 12, 2012, Page 5, Image 5

Opinion
Corey Booker: Experimenting with Poverty
N
ewark Mayor Corey Booker, follow-
ing the example of Phoenix, Ariz.,
Mayor Greg Stanton, is accepting a
challenge to live on a $35 food stamp budg-
et for one week. Mr. Mayor will add to his
resume of shoveling snow and rescuing a
woman from a burning house this latest feat
that some news reporters are calling an
“experiment.” Booker’s background, going
back to his youth, includes other out-of-the-
box actions, which are admirable and
respectable. However, this experiment, as
some are calling it, will not go down as one
of them.
A person who earns more than $13,000
per month going for one week on what is
essentially a diet may be a nice news story
but does nothing to alleviate the reality of
those who are on that “diet” every day. The
“bringing to the attention of the general
public” angle is worth a 30-second
or even a 60-second sound-bite, but
it’s not like folks in this country
don’t already know the stigma and
trauma and futility of feeding one
person, much less three of four per-
sons, on a weekly allocation of food
stamps.
The walk a mile in my shoes angle
may demonstrate some compassion
and maybe even some temporary
empathy, but after the week is over,
and even during the week of
rationing food, or as some may even call
“fasting,” the celebrity goes back to a much
better life, as if he or she ever left it at all.
Real people on food stamps must stay in
that place for much longer than a week.
I don’t know Mayor Stanton or Mayor
Booker, but I did some research on Booker
and found that he has done several com-
mendable things for others during his young
life. Also, Booker drew a lot of attention
from his run for office against former
E CONOMIC
E MPOWERMENT
James
Clingman
Newark mayor, Sharpe James. Booker’s
public profile was raised again during the
last presidential campaign, when he jumped
into the fray by briefly defending the work
of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. Thus, I
doubt he needs to use food stamps for a
week to gain more attention.
So why is he doing it? Reporters say he is
doing it to bring attention to the food stamp
Real people on food stamps
must stay in that place for
much longer than a week
problem, to “teach people how to responsi-
bly budget and learn to eat nutritionally on
a limited budget.” Just how limited, they
didn’t say. The recommendation along with
Booker’s actions is that people across the
country take part in the challenge as well.
Maybe some need to live for a week on
food stamps to know what others are going
through; but I don’t. Just like I don’t need
to spend a week in prison to know I never
want to be there. I don’t need to live on
$1.40 per meal to know that people on food
stamps are having a very difficult time
doing so. As I said, it’s nothing more than a
one-week diet as far as I am concerned, and
many people do that every day without the
fanfare and drumrolls. Folks
on food stamps live every day
as guinea pigs for the food
stamp “experiment.” So, is
the hype about Booker’s one
week sacrifice to eat less a
publicity stunt, exploitation,
or a sincere effort to change
the poverty conditions of mil-
lions on food stamps? Only
Mayor Booker can answer
that.
My contention is that living
for a week on a food stamp
diet, depending upon the rea-
son for doing so, can also be deemed a
fast. We are familiar with fasts and the
reasons for them, especially those hav-
ing a religious connection. Moreover,
we are instructed to go about our fasts
without bringing attention to our-
selves, so it will not be “obvious to
men” (Matthew 6:16).
Additionally, there are other impor-
tant points made about fasting in the
58th Chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “Is
this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble him-
self?…Is not this the kind of fasting I have
chosen: to loose the chains of injustice…to
set the oppressed free…is it not to share
your food with the hungry and provide the
poor wanderer with shelter…when you see
the naked to clothe him? …if you spend
yourselves in behalf of the hungry and sat-
isfy the needs of the oppressed, then your
light will rise in the darkness, and your
night will become like the noonday.”
It’s nothing more than a one-
week diet as far as I am
concerned, and many people
do that every day without the
fanfare and drumrolls
Let’s not make this food stamp issue just
another political advantage for election or
reelection. People in this country are suf-
fering, and many who have to eat on the
food stamp plan would much rather have an
alternative – like a job. We should do what
we can to help them, and we should do it not
for publicity or accolades, but because it’s
simply the right thing to do.
Jim Clingman, founder of the Greater
Cincinnati African American Chamber of
Commerce, is the nation’s most prolific
writer on economic empowerment for Black
people. He is an adjunct professor at the
University of Cincinnati and can be reached
through his Web site, blackonomics.com.
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December 12, 2012
The Portland Skanner Page 5