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!!