Forty Years Wandering in the Desert, It Is Time to Cross the Moral Line in the Sand 

Greater Baltimore Committee Leadership Program’s Retreat

Friday, April 11, 2008

You may have seen this item in the papers recently:

Dear Abby,

My husband is a liar and a cheat.  He has cheated on me from the beginning, and when I confront him he denies everything.  What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me.  It is humiliating.

Also, since he lost his job seven years ago or so, he hasn’t even looked for a new one.  All he does is smoke cigars and cruise around with his buddies, while I have to work to pay the bills.

Since our daughter went away to college, he doesn’t even pretend to like me.

What should I do?

Signed: Clueless

Dear Clueless:

Grow up and dump him.  Good grief, woman.  You don’t need him anymore!  You’re a United States Senator from New York running for President of the United States.  Act like one!

By now, we are all aware that forty years have passed since the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  Forty years of wandering in the desert seem to have taken place.  The air has been dry and extreme… there has been little real refreshment for the body or the soul and there have been delusions (mirages): of greatness, of kindness, of progress and of fairness. 

There has been a moral line in the sand, which we as a nation and a city have yet to cross.  It is the line that separates a moral, fair and just society from an unfair, unjust, immoral one. 

In 1968, there were 29,700,000 Americans living in poverty.  At that time, the poverty line was $3,335 for a family of four.  Any family with less than that amount of income was officially poor.  15% of the U.S. population was poor at that time.

Today, there are 37,000,000 Americans living in poverty (12.5% of the population).  A family of four with a household income of less than $21,200 is poor in 2008 poverty threshold calculations.  That family of four has gained only $17,865 totally or $447 a year of increased income in raw dollars over the last 40 years. 

Admittedly, some progress has been made.  But overall as British singer, Corrine Bailey Rae, once sang, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  We are a nation engaged forty years ago in wars in Cambodia and Viet Nam and now we are stuck in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And with millions of our citizens mired in poverty… then and now, we cannot afford to help them because our money overwhelmingly goes to the military efforts abroad.

Wealth has not shifted much over the last forty years. We can see that on our local scene.   According to some analysis released by Associated Black Charities earlier this year, “the economic disparities between blacks and whites residing in Baltimore City are stark.”  Here is some of what they found, as reported in The Baltimore Sun on January 11, 2008:

“While 65 percent of the city’s population is African American, 48 percent of its middle class is black.  Middle income is defined as earning between $35,000 and $75,000.

About 17 percent of black middle-income residents have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 28 percent for middle income whites.    And…

White households on average, have 10 times higher net worth than black households.

Of the 60,000 African Americans who left Baltimore between 1995 and 2000, 42% were middle-income.”

It is for reasons such as these that I say the poverty is structural. That is, circumstances maintain it and perpetuate it, making getting out of poverty unattainable for too many Baltimoreans.  Despite some gallant attempts to fix them, the public schools for the last few decades have historically been bad in Baltimore making it nearly impossible to study your way out of poverty. The wages are so low for so many, who are lucky enough to work, that they can’t spend or save their way out of poverty, better paying jobs are so inaccessible to those without cars that you can’t take a bus, subway or light rail train to a good starter job.  Those engaged in the poverty game were best described by Michael Jackson in the 1978 film, “The Wiz”, when he sang, “You can’t win, you can’t get even and you can’t get out of the game.”

Being poor you probably live in bad housing, situated in a crime-ridden neighborhood. You may have a criminal record so getting a job is pretty complicated, and you may have been on drugs or drank too much in your day. 

Nobody knows what to do about so many poor people inhabiting our city these days.  The Baltimore Sun reported on Sunday, March 28th of 2004 that there are 200,000 unemployed persons in the city.  The overwhelming majority of them are discouraged workers.   The overwhelming majority of the unemployed (2/3) are black. 

Since 1950, the population in Baltimore has declined from the 1,000,000 mark it was climbing towards.  Its descent aggravated by the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision calling “separate inherently unequal” and with exit icing put on the cake by the riots in Baltimore in 1968. 

We have never recovered from MLK’s assassination as an American society.  We have never gotten over it in Baltimore City either.  The myriad of vacant houses dotting our city, the segregated schools, our inadequate public transportation system, the limited number of African Americans on the police force, the fire department squad, and the starting lineup of the Baltimore Orioles tell us we have not come together across the racial divide.

The basis of the divide is fear: fear of retaliation vs. fear of rejection.  When blacks express raw anger at life in these United States, whites express fear that something more is being called for: like revenge.  When whites hold up their standards to black folks (this is how much education you need to stay in the game, this is how much money you need to play the game, this is how much melanin you must be without to live in this neighborhood… this is how you can make me comfortable: shave, talk properly (no shouting please) and be infinitely patient. 

The great divide must be addressed.  Someone we all know tried to in calling for “A More Perfect Union” some weeks ago. It remains to be seen how successful he was.

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery.

For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/ sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father.

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?

After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

Reverend Wright has not always been right in what he’s said perhaps—nobody is.  But he represents in sentiment the nation’s unfinished business.  There is anger over the issues regarding race.  And the late writer, James Baldwin, author of “The Fire Next Time” said it best, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

What needs to be faced?  That racial prejudice and discrimination do still exist in this country and city.  That poverty, as we know it in America, has roots in racial strife going back to 1619, the first day slaves got off the boat in Jamestown.  That when we make substantial progress in eliminating poverty, we will go a long way toward removing racial tension from our nation’s psyche.   I am confident we can move on…

Jobs for all: full employment in Baltimore City is an answer.  Let’s put people to work fixing the city’s infrastructure, weatherizing Baltimore homes against ever-rising utility costs and restoring the many vacants that dot the city’s landscape.  Let’s start a micro-enterprise bank and help some start small businesses.  Let’s pursue alternative fuel sources and let Baltimore City get on the map nationally for doing so.  But let’s come together as a city and commit to a job for everyone who wants one: first with drug treatment and alcohol detoxification for those who need it… GED classes… motivation and inspiration (here’s where the churches, mosques and synagogues can help).  And childcare for new workers will create more jobs still.

But we need jobs that pay living wages with benefits including healthcare.  We need to rid our town of the temp agencies that exploit workers below the radar with low pay, limited hours and ugly working conditions… we need real jobs.  We need a “Full Employment Campaign in Baltimore” now!

I believe we are on the brink of changing times.  I believe there is a growing recollection that we can be a better society.  I believe the forty years, since King’s assassination, that we’ve wandered in the desert, are coming to a close.  We have been challenged to change. We have been invited to come together.  We have been cautioned to begin dialoguing across the great racial divides, before it is too late.  We have been encouraged to be boldly hopeful.  What is stopping us?

Ralph E. Moore, Jr.
Greater Baltimore Committee Leadership Retreat
April 11, 200