Poverty Rates

According to 1999 U.S. Census information, 24.9% of the African American population is below the poverty level. The only other ethnic group to have a larger percentage of its members below the poverty level is Native Americans (25.7%). When this statistic is compared to the relatively low rate of 9.1% for whites (the lowest of any racial designation) it is clear that there is yet work to do before African Americans and First Nations people can be considered full participants in the "American Dream".

Don't think of this as a self-righteous campaign on the part of the "White Man's Burden". I do not offer these statistics from the comfort of an insulated, middle class existence. My family of four is sitting within a few hundred dollars of the poverty level right now. We receive food stamps and have had our kids on state provided insurance programs in the past. Yet, I am keenly aware of the difference in the degree of opportunity available to me as compared to that available to African Americans and First Nations people. Much of the difference is between the educational and vocational opportunities afforded me earlier in my life as a resident in solidly middle-class suburbia.

Cornel West refers to "the most basic issue now facing black America: the nihilistic threat to its very existence." He continues, "This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness - though economic well-being and political clout are requisites for meaningful black progress. It is primarily a question of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in black America."

For a person of any color to transcend these circumstances they must feel that there is hope beyond their current suffering. Until black America is affirmed in its blackness as full-participants in humanity, there will be no hope for the defeat of this nihilistic threat to its very existence.

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