Yes, we have them…we can’t pretend we don’t anymore.
And it is only bound to get worse as Republican-Teahadist tear at the fabric of all the safety nets and social programs that has made being poor somewhat bearable.
People in other countries may say: "I can’t believe that there are really ghettos in America because America is a rich country…and i always dream of going there too, that's why I'm very shocked."
And so on…one wonders; does the rest of the world think that North America is a rich country where we all sit around in leather couches, eating expensive gourmet food, counting our gold while lighting our cigars with 100 dollar bills? If you think that way you are completely wrong for this is only true for about 1% of those who are in that privileged, top of the food chain super wealthy…the rest of us are either poor, very poor…I mean dirt poor or belong to a dwindling middle class that is beginning to look more like poor..
These ghettos are not perhaps as severe and dismal as in some third world country but the misery, the poverty, the crime is. If we are to compare any American ghetto to a Brazilian “FAVELA” or shantytown, the similarities are uncanny and so are the differences. For one thing, the resident of the American ghetto does have access to some help…like Welfare and Free Clinics; for another, the structures themselves may be a bit more substantial in America although not unlike the Favelas are still dirty, decaying places devoid of amenities and crime ridden. Why is crime so high in these places? Because desperate people will do desperate things.
There were people who responded negatively and one response in particular made me think. The responder had wrote “You would not go into a poor neighborhood in your own country, so, why would you want to do this in Brazil?”
For foreigners, I think attraction to favelas is different because of the way the media portrays these communities. It first starts in how Brazil is promoted by tourism and films. City of God brought the favela issue to the front and this brought more attention to the favela. Carnival and Samba also created curiosity about the favelas. Who can forget the 1959 Cannes Film Festival winner “Black Orpheus” that had as its setting the Rio de Janeiro favela?
Foreigners were not raised with the prejudice against the favelas like Brazilians have been. Its sad because much of the origin of the Brazilian identity is from that of the favelas. Carnival, Samba, Feijoada, many of Brazil’s top football-soccer players.
Ghetto’s, favelas, whatever we call them are underserved areas of poor people. How poor? You would have to decide on your own what levels of poverty exist there. I can tell you in living in the favela here, yes, we are poor but we are not as poor as the slums in India or Africa.
And so, there is even a degree of poverty…surely a US ghetto would be considered Beverly Hills to someone in Mogadishu or in Calcutta. But make no mistake about it…the erosion is under way and soon we will match the level of poverty in many of these unfortunate countries if Republicans have their way at carving away all the safety nets and social programs.
Therefore, the Republican-Teahadists will have that society with high levels of unemployment…so they can exact harder work, longer hours and no benefits from their labor force. There would be no safety nets and absolutely no services provided to those in the lower 98. This they will do if they get the chance and indications are that they have been winning the class wars for over 30 years now…America has become a WELFARE STATE but not for lower income people but for the very rich and the corporations; and they really don’t give a flying fuck if they destroy our nation to do it.
Here are some staggering figures:
37 million: Number of Americans who live below the official poverty line—12.6 percent of the total population.
1 in 8: Proportion of Americans who now live in poverty
1 in 3: Proportion of Americans who are considered low-income
25: Percentage of all workers who were in jobs for which year-round full-time work would not pay enough to keep a family of four above the poverty threshold
Between 700,000 and 3 million "homeless" people in the United States at any one time according to estimates
.
A word of warning: Those ghettos are breeding grounds for discontent and rebellion. Right now we can barely keep law and order with the dwindling resources for police and fire protection. When things get worse like the Republican-Teahadists want; the numbers of poor people will climb and this is reason enough to have all those in favor of a PLUTOCRACY shake in their boots…So go ahead, have your smaller government with less regulations and no social programs, no safety nets...privatize SOCIAL SECURITY and give the super wealthy even lower taxes. Remember La Bastille, “let them eat cake”?
SOURCES: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carfweb.net/grafix/death2
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.newslinemagazine.com
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6282/2506/1600/clevelandcar1.jpg
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_numbers.html
