Great article in today's New York Times about poverty. Apparently the US now has more poor people than it did in President Johnson's days (and one in 5 Canadian children is being raised in poverty).
And yet, somehow, nobody will say the word "poor" in public. Occasionally, people will exclaim "I'm too poor for that," but they're usually not too serious. And nobody ever, ever, utters the words "poor people" during an election campaign.
Even Jack Layton, champion of the little guy, was always talking about "working families" or "ordinary Canadians." Which is too bad, because you know what makes some Canadians ordinary? The fact that they are poor - they don't make enough money to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and education.
But Barack Obama won't say "poor," and neither will any other politician. It's a real shame poverty has fallen off the political agenda, given the fact that children are all equal at birth, it's society that makes them unequal.
My sister, Tracy, wrote a great song called "High Class, Low Class," about people who don't get any respect for the work they do. One of the lines is "You might be on the bottom, and they say that money talks."
Our friends have a twoyear old daughter. Her older sister was listening to Tracy's cd around the house. The two year old looked up at her mother and asked "why Mommy? why some people on bottom." Imagine trying to answer that question.
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