When he was assassinated, nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was working on the Poor People's Campaign. He knew then that the only chance we had to make the American Dream come true was to help people - black, white, Hispanic, Native American, all of us - understand that we are all poor people, except the .001%.
“This sounds counter-intuitive, right? In this year of Trump, where supposedly the lines of division are stronger, Dr. King’s diagnosis and his way forward with the Poor People’s Campaign makes more sense now even than when he proposed it 50 years ago. We need to be able to show these things, about what’s happening in Flint, what’s happening in Decatur, about how poverty is visiting more and more people and impacting them, and the role that racism plays in not only oppressing and exploiting Black people and other poor people of color, but also controlling the poor whites on the bottom.”
You thought you were middle class, right? We all did.
The truth is you and I are now the newest members of the Poor. We’re just the New Poor.
There is no longer a "middle" for any of us… only bottom… and the very, tip top for the .001%.
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