FOOD STAMPS...SNAP, CRACKLE, POP

Did you know that there are 16.1 million Black folks receiving SNAP assistance? For those of you still in the dark, or just don’t give a damn, SNAP is the acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…commonly known as Food Stamps. SNAP does sound kinda sexy doesn’t it? In some ways SNAP or Food Stamps is really a stimulus program for the hood. I’ll explain that later. But now, since we have a Black President and the right wingers have blocked or tore apart every program proposed by this President, they have now began to zero in on SNAP like a predator drone in Afghanistan. Why not? They know you ain’t gonna fight back because you don’t keep up with current events, only Stepper sets, and Rap concerts. They know that you’re sitting at O’ Charlie’s sippin on Hennessy paid for with the cash you got for the stamps you traded. Ouch! Hurt didn’t it! Poor Black folk please wake up! What I’m going to do is give you something that you are sorely lacking; a lesson on why you are in the early stages of getting thoroughly fucked! The racist right wingers will say that the SNAP program is exploding the budget, regardless of the wars that Bush started or the tax cuts for the rich. Here’s what they’re sayin in those whites only closed door secret meetings; “we can't be wasting any more of our money on those poor niggers who just want to live off the government, that's the real cause of our problems, they shouldn’t get any food assistance unless they turn their cannibalism on us.” That’s what they think of you! A damn cannibal! They think it ain’t no starving people in America, because people haven’t resorted to cannibalism yet. There’s that word again. Hum? Did you Black people know that there was a time when it was actually considered a matter of serious national security that you don't allow your citizens to be starving on the streets? But now, here comes the right wing crazies using their racial code words trying to fuel resentment against our people. These motherfuckers long for the day of yesteryear when no social programs existed. They mock Black folk as unemployable lazy ass freeloaders, saying that there is a new division in their America that says: “those that pay a double fare, and those who forever ride free.” By turning Food Stamps into a Black issue, this makes racial scapegoating easy and allows them to use old over-used stereotypes, like “welfare queen” to go unchallenged. Right-wingers portray whites as deserving good people who are legitimately unable to pay their own way, and Blacks as undeserving low-lives who are looking for the feds to subsidize their laziness. I keep asking myself why the right wingers hate America. I don’t think they hate America; they just hate the part that’s not white. Get this; we have government employed members of the racist right, secretly searching the Social Security rolls for people getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Medicaid and Food Stamps, the relief programs with the most Black clients. But I know that whites not Blacks make up most the of clients on these public aid programs; a fact that dismisses the notion that Blacks are scheming for a free lunch courtesy of Uncle Sam. The way I see it, if Black folk in the hood are able to buy a little bit more in the grocery store, then somebody's got to stock it, shelve it, package it, process it, ship it; all of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get into the hood during tough times. And most of our Black sisters are not necessarily on cash welfare. A majority of white folk think that every Black person who is receiving Food Stamps is a cash welfare recipient. Only ten percent of SNAP recipients receive cash benefits. Now for the mathematical figures that will blow your fuckin mind: The population of the United states is approximately 310 million, with the Black population an estimated 36 million. Let’s see, that’s roughly 12 % of the total population. There are 43.3 million people receiving Food Stamp benefits. Are you following me? The amount of Black folks receiving Food Stamp assistance is 37.2% of those 43.3 million people. Still with me? That equals to an estimated 16.1 million Black folk receiving Food Stamp benefits. If my 2nd grade math is correct, that means a staggering 44.4% of our total population is receiving Food Stamp assistance. The 2011 budget total for SNAP is 59 billion dollars. That means that Black folks are receiving direct aid of 21 billion dollars. Wow! Fuck the right wingers; we need to do a better job of getting the word out about the program so more of our people who are eligible sign up for it and help stimulate their local hood economy. I’m Phillip Norton and I’m an angry Black man!!

FADE TO BLACK

We need to have the complete, total annihilation white supremacy in America. We should not vote for one more white candidate! After decades of growth in our communities, we are now being moved like pawns on a worn out chess board. We are being controlled daily by forces that do not have our best interests at heart. I do not see it any other way now. I know that by writing this document I will probably loose friends and readers but this has to be said. We have to become mean again. We have to fight our oppression with force. By manipulation of statistics, the government reports Black unemployment at 16.9%, but we in the trenches know it to be around 30%.The reason Black people are not getting jobs is pure, unadulterated racism. With the election of Obama, this sparked the pure racists to jump right out of their business suits, and black robes led by the Tea Party crazies. This very out in the open racism is keeping us enslaved and entrenched in our communities. It is the bases for our high unemployment. This new out-in the open racism was the founding principle of the Tea Party. As I see it now; singing, marching, praying, speaking in tongues, protesting, and check this out; voting will not get us out of our dark ghettos of destruction. We are going to have to become just as vile with this monster, just as savage, if not more. We have to go to war with these racist. The new right wingers are always quoting, carrying, and displaying the Constitution. Hell, the Constitution wasn’t written with us in mind. In reality, the Constitution is actually a slave document. We should have retained our tribal instincts from our African ancestors over all other factors and in the face of all other logic. We have to get back to being Black! If we don’t, we will keep on being controlled, and he who controls the way you think, controls the way you act. That’s’ exactly where we are right now. There is, and always will be, a consistent internal thread of neglect that runs through most of our community. Even though a high percentage of our people receive government assistance, there is still a fundamental skepticism of the government’s ability to protect us, and provide for us, and that comes from the new right wing who don’t believe in government, or radical Black folk like myself who have witnessed history and have seen where we’ve been. I’m playing a game of high stakes poker by writing this piece, and this is the kind of revolutionary, grassroots caring that will certainly cost me some my so called material advantages. But it can also restore our moral force that will be the heart of our new civil rights movement, and ensure that we finally listen, and truly advocate for our future.

LIFE AFTER TROY DAVIS

The Egyptians’ effective use of Facebook should give us added energy in our new consciousness movement spurred by the State sponsored murder of Troy Davis. This makes sense: Facebook, when combined with our collective message, the right environment, and our dedicated brothers and sisters, can indeed help to spark the awareness, energy, and the massive crowds we will need. Unfortunately, the quicker we mobilize, the less time there is for us to plan. It’s more important than ever for us to prepare for the day after. While it’s essential to reach our goals of full employment, renewed investment in our communities, more educational opportunities, and inclusiveness, it’s even more important to build on Troy Davis’ legacy and regroup. We need to act fast, capitalizing on increased visibility and heightened awareness to get more resources to our campaign. We need to solicit strategic advice from outsiders with more experience at civil protest, and bring in more foot soldiers and thousands of volunteers. We will need massive funding, so now is our time to get it. Troy’s state sponsored murder agitated lots of folks that were not really agitated about anything, but that doesn’t mean they’re organized. It’s up to us to organize them. We should start getting in touch with everybody we can. Whenever possible, we should collect emails, mobile phone numbers, Twitter handles, and Facebook URLs, and save them in documents that are stored in a few different places only known to us. We have to remember; why’d this thing start anyway? We should reconcile our original goals of full employment, renewed investment in our communities, more educational opportunities, and inclusiveness with Troy’s murder and identify a new long-term vision for the change we want. Our new campaign will succeed only if we involve all of the people. That’s why it’s so important to ask the people who got involved with Troy’s protests, what the next step should be. We should take a cue from Wael Ghonim, one of the administrators of the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, who, when asked what was next for a post-Mubarak Egypt, said: “Ask Facebook.” This is easier said than done, but the attitude is right on. As the Egyptian demonstrators have shown us, it’s a lot easier to complete the first day of a revolution than the second. Holding together a large coalition is simpler when everyone is on board and our goals are obvious. If we build support with a strong strategy, and long-term thinking, then the chances are a lot higher that all of our demands will be met — and will stay met.