Don't be fooled: race matters

My friend and colleague, Dr. Timothy Bray, Director, Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas, shared the following reality with me about "concentrated poverty" (neighborhood or census tract in which 40% of population live at or below federal poverty line) in the city of Dallas:

• 11% of the 96 predominantly Hispanic census tracts experience concentrated poverty
• 40% of our 48 predominantly African American, non-Hispanic census tracts experience concentrated poverty
• 0% of our 90 predominantly non-Hispanic, white census tracts experience concentrated poverty

Apparently, race still matters.

Only growing worse. . .

The video that follows promotes the work of a few of our partners.  CitySquare and many other organizations could have been listed. 

The message is true. 

The challenges grow more difficult every day.

It is past time to begin investing in the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors. 

How do we awaken the nation to this unsustainable reality?

Facing hard facts we don't like. . .

 

Oppression

In any situation of oppression, especially in those oblique, indirect and systemic ones where injustice wears a mask of normalcy or even of necessity, the only ones who are innocent or blessed are those squeezed out deliberately as human junk from the system’s evil operations…. That is a terrible aphorism against society because…it focuses not just on personal or individual abuse of power but on such abuse in its systemic or structural possibilities—and there, in contrast to the former level, none of our hands are innocent or our consciences particularly clear.

John Dominic Crossan
Source: Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Moving beyond charity. . .

Showing a Lack of Faith

To feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the harborless without also trying to change the social order so that people can feed, clothe and shelter themselves is just to apply palliatives. It is to show a lack of faith in one’s fellows, their responsibilities as children of God, heirs of heaven.

Dorothy Day
Source: The Catholic Worker (February 1945)

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Ferguson, MO

How do we think about Ferguson, MO? 

Lots of opinions have been expressed, many leading in the direction of further, national polarization at a time when we need just the opposite. 

I haven't read the 3,000 pages of grand jury transcription.  I haven't heard all of "the facts of the case," not to equate the recorded proceedings with "fact." 

Here's what I think I know about Ferguson, MO, and what I suspect may be in the background of considerations of recent horrific events there.

People of color in the small St. Louis suburb are vastly under-represented in public institutions such as government, school district and law enforcement. 

People of color in Ferguson receive a disproportionate level of attention and ticketing from law enforcement officers who evidently play a large, some would say undue, role in raising operating capital for the city through writing citations.  As a result, frustration with the police has been a long-standing fact of life in the small town. 

The Ferguson tragedy that involved the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, is not unique in our nation.  The fact that  nationally young black men are shot by police officers 21 times the rate of young white men doesn't help the community atmosphere.  Just here I could list a number of names in the news recently whose encounters with law enforcement officials needed in horror and loss. 

For years African American parents have coached their children, especially their sons, about how to react to police attention or encounters.  During the time I was a member of the Central Dallas Church, I had numerous discussions about this necessary "talk" that occurred again and again among our young men and their parents and peers. 

People who wield power have a responsibility to approach conflict with a mindset and attitude of de-escalation and "win-win," rather than "win-lose."  Controlling conflict accompanied by super-charged emotions requires special skills, servant leadership, expertise and great heart.  Developing these special skills requires training and re-training as a part of a normal law enforcement regimen.

Community policing is all about establishing meaningful relationships with and in neighborhoods that move beyond heavy-handed confrontation.  Again, this approach to law enforcement calls for special training and special law officers.  Community policing by definition builds relationships, depends on residents to support police work and instills confidence, not fear in the lives of those being served.

Looting, burning, vandalizing and violence are never acceptable responses to the failure or the injustice of public policy or institutions.  The rule of law is central to the stability and health of our communities and our nation.  Non-violent actions of dissent are vital to a movement for change, but not violence that so often destroys neighborhoods and businesses already oppressed by social factors so evident in this case.

The vast majority of Ferguson residents involved in protests conducted themselves peacefully, with strength, dignity and determination.  Such organized, community responses stand in the best, rich tradition of the American Civil Rights Movement, and should be encouraged and defended.

Poverty, a deep poverty, disproportionately affects African Americans in this small town.  Consider these facts:

• 21% of Ferguson residents live in poverty
• Almost 7% live below 50% of the federal poverty level
• 30% of males between 12-14 years old live in poverty
• Almost 40% of males 15 years old live in poverty
• 30% of males 16-17 years old live in poverty
• Almost 35% of children under 5 years old live in poverty
• 26% of all youth live in poverty
• Under 600 white residents live in poverty
• Over 2,400 black residents live in poverty
• African Americans represent 67% of Ferguson residents
• Ferguson Police Department employs 53 officers, only 3 are African American

As I read, hear and learn more about the dynamics of the Ferguson experience, I realize that countless American communities are set up for terrible events just like these. 

As friends and neighbors, we need to work for a better life together here in Dallas.  

We need more friendships.

And, we need to talk. 

It's about justice

Systemic justice is a result-oriented justice

Marcus Borg contends that Jesus has something to say about the way we organize ourselves in community — that when a society is structured to serve the self-interests of the wealthy and powerful it is not a just society. “If you have a society in which 1% of the population own 43% of the wealth, it is pretty clear that the 1% has structured that society so it kind of worked out that way — and they have a tremendous amount of power to sustain it.”

– Marcus Borg in Living the Questions 2.0

Internationally known in both academic and church circles as a biblical and Jesus scholar, Marcus Borg was Hundere Chair of Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University until his retirement in 2007. Borg has been described by The New York Times as “a leading figure in his generation of Jesus scholars” and is the author of over twenty books, including the popular “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” and “The Heart of Christianity.”

“LtQ Clips” offer thought-provoking observations and comments on spirituality and religion from prominent authors, scholars, and thinkers. These excerpts from“Living the Questions” curriculum are designed to spark conversation in questioning the dominant pop theology of American Christianity.

Disparity

Black Americans Given 60% Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes submitted by Amanda Lang

A new academic study of 58,000 federal criminal cases has found significant disparities in sentencing for blacks and whites arrested for the same crimes. The research led to the conclusion that African-Americans' jail time was almost 60% longer than white sentences... The report concludes that sentence disparities 'can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant's criminal history, and the prosecutor's initial choice of charges.'

Read the entire report here.

Beyond charity, building justice into systems

“On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

From a sermon entitled "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church”

― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Poverty costs

A number of readers who respond to my posts here sound as if they really understand poverty and the people who endure it.  A list of the more common phrases offered up here by these "experts" include "personal responsibility," "hard work," "hand outs," etc., etc., etc. What so many of these friends don't comprehend is the emotional, spiritual, psychological aspects of living in poverty, particularly over an extended period of time.  Easy solutions focused on behavioral modification of various sorts remain inadequate.  Real solutions will involve a comprehensive approach to attacking the root causes of poverty and its accompanying malaise. 

With this in mind, consider the challenging words of  Charles Blow: 

Them That’s Not Shall Lose
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: June 24, 2011
The New York Times

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

James Baldwin penned that line more than 50 years ago, but it seems particularly prescient today, if in a different manner than its original intent.

Baldwin was referring to the poor being consistently overcharged for inferior goods. But I’ve always considered that sentence in the context of the extreme psychological toll of poverty, for it is in that way that I, too, know well how expensive it is to be poor.

I know the feel of thick calluses on the bottom of shoeless feet. I know the bite of the cold breeze that slithers through a drafty house. I know the weight of constant worry over not having enough to fill a belly or fight an illness.

It is in that context that I am forced to assume that if Washington politicians ever knew the sting of poverty then they have long since vanquished the memory. How else to qualify their positions? In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and between 2008 and 2009, when most Americans were feeling the brunt of the recession, the personal wealth of members of Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent. Must be nice.

Poverty is brutal, consuming and unforgiving. It strikes at the soul.

You defend yourself with hope, hard work and, for some, a helping hand. But these weapons grow dull in an economy on the verge of atrophy, in a job market tilting ever more toward the top and in a political environment that would sacrifice the weak to the wealthy.

On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a poll that showed how disillusioned low-income people have become. Those making less than $30,000 were the most likely to expect to be laid off or be asked to take a pay cut. Furthermore, they were the most likely to say that they had trouble getting or paying for medical care and paying the rent or mortgage.

But at least those numbers include people with incomes. A vast subset is chronically unemployed and desperately searching for work. According to the Consumer Reports Employment Index, “In 23 of the past 24 months, lower-income Americans have lost more jobs than they have gained.” It continues, “Meanwhile, more affluent Americans seem to be gaining more jobs than they are losing.”

And the current election-cycle obsession to balance the books with a pound of flesh, which is being pushed by pitiless Republicans and accommodated by pitiful Democrats, will only multiply the pain.

Until more politicians understand — or remember — what it means to be poor in this country, we are destined to fail the least among us, and all of us will pay a heavy price for that failure.

To Understand

"You can look at a slum or a peasant village, but it is only by entering into the world -- by living in it -- that you begin to understand what it is like to be powerless, to be like Christ."


-Penny Lernoux
[from Red Letter Christians, Tony Campolo's weblog]

American wisdom from a "founder"

"Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power coincides with a proper distribution of the public burdens and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!"

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist Papers, #36

The right to sing

The notion of solidarity in authentic community doesn't come naturally to us. 

The spirit of "we're all in this together" appears lost to our consumer-driven, "every man for himself" culture. 

Most revolutionary leadership on the positive side of history's rolling ledger recognizes the importance/necessity of this understanding of our human interdependence. 

Again, the experience and counsel of Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides challenging guidance in shaping a renewed understanding of the essential nature of standing for and with others, even when no immediate benefit appears obvious for me and my interests. 

Eric Metaxas' moving new biography of the Lutheran clergyman contains the following passage on the clear connection between speaking out and standing with those who suffer oppression and powerlessness and the practice of genuine faith in the world today:

The Nuremberg Laws represented what has been called a second, "more ordered" phase of Jewish persecution.  Jews. who were once legal citizens of Germany, were becoming subject of the Third Reich.  Their citizenship was banishing, legally, in the center of Europe, in the twentieth century.  Bonhoeffer had known of this pending legislation through Dohnanyi (his brother-in-law), who tried to thwart it, or blunt it, in vain.

Bonhoeffer saw the enactment of these laws as an opportunity for the Confessing Church to speak out clearly, in a way they had not yet been able to do.  The Nazis had drawn a line in the sand and everyone could see it.

But the Confessing Church was again slow to act.  It was guilty of the typically Lutheran error of confining itself to the narrow sphere of how church and state were related.  When the state is trying to encroach upon the church, this is a proper sphere of concern.  But for Bonhoeffer, the idea of limiting the church's actions to this sphere alone was absurd.  The church had been instituted by God to exist for the whole world.  It was to speak into the world and to be a voice in the world, so it had an obligation to speak out against things that did not affect it directly. 

Bonhoeffer believed it was the role of the church to speak for those who could not speak.  To outlaw slavery inside the church was right, but to allow it to exist outside the church would be evil.  So it was with this persecution of the Jews by the Nazi state.  Boldly speaking out for those who were being persecuted would show the Confessing Church to be the church, because just as Bonhoeffer had written that Jesus Christ was the "man for others," so the church was his body on this earth, a community in which Christ was present--a community that existed "for others."  To serve others outside the church, to love them as one loved oneself, and to do unto them as one would have others do unto oneself, these were the clear commands of Christ.

Around that time, Bonhoeffer made his famous declaration:  "Only he who crises out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants."  As far as he was concerned, to dare to sing to God when his chosen people were being beaten and murdered meant that one must also speak out against their suffering.  If one was unwilling to do this, God was not interested in one's worship.

from Bonhoeffer:  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

by Eric Metaxas

Drug enforcement: something I've observed for years

Leonard Pitts speaks the truth.  I read what's beneath his by-line whenever I see it. 

In an Op-Ed essay that appeared in The Dallas Morning News recently, Pitts "unpacks" Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010).

Below you'll find a short sample of Pitt's analysis. 

Disturbing stuff. 

But, my experience in the city over the past 16 years confirms it. 

Read the sample: 

Leonard Pitts: Disturbing 'Jim Crow' book is a must read

According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, whites are far and away the biggest users – and dealers – of illegal drugs.

So why aren't cops kicking their doors in? Why aren't their sons pulled over a dozen times in nine months? Why are black men 12 times as likely to be jailed for drugs as white ones? Why aren't white communities robbed of their fathers, brothers, sons?

To read the entire Pitts essay click here.

To order Michelle Anderson's book go here. 

Reactions?

Seeking a new way. . .calling for new will

"But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited [laboring underclass], robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order."


— Gustavo Gutiérrez

Avoid "Social Justice Churches"

So, I suppose Moses, David, Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus and James would not be welcome at Glenn Beck's church, wherever that is, if it exists. 


Amazing commentary.  No wonder we have stalemate on so many policies in this nation.

Clearly, the words of scripture, read in every church including Beck's, deal with social and economic justice, the concerns of laboring people and a very real commitment to equity and to standing with the poor.  Possibly, a branch of American Christianity now has decided to abandon this central part of the tradition and message of our faith.  Such a heretical decision does not remove the truth from the Bible, but only from exposure to congregants who aren't allowed to hear the whole story for themselves. This one is really hard for me to understand.

Glenn Beck Urges Listeners to Leave Churches That Preach Social Justice

On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

To read more and listen to the audio click here.

Live United. . .worth watching

The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas (UWMD) is moving through a complete organizational "re-invention" with the objective to provide higher impact services, advocacy and community engagement than ever before in its history. 

I can say this with great confidence because I've been in on some of the work that has been going on now for about three years. 

UWMD holds up a brilliant new model in its simple, but profound call to "Live United!"

Inviting donors to donate, advocate and volunteer, UWMD throws down a comprehensive challenge to corporations and their employees to get involved as never before in the life of our region. 

Turning to service providers and community organizations like Central Dallas Ministries, UWMD challenges us to refine our focus to concentrate on three major areas of concern as we do our work:  Education, Income and Health.  In addition, UWMD has set aside funding for "basic human needs" that arise from the current economic realities of our area and from emergency situations. 

One more major policy shift that marks a sea change at Untied Way is the fact that next year any non-profit organization in the community can submit a grant for funding.  The process will be wide open to any group with a great idea and the ability to drive positive, measureable outcomes. 

Working with Gary Godsey, President/CEO of UWMD, his team and all of our colleagues is a real privilege.  But, the best days remain ahead of us. 

So today, I applaud the work of our United Way! 

To gain more insight into the new world of UWMD click here.

Tiresome work. . .

People call me frequently to ask about employment in the non-profit sector. Or, they want advice on how to begin a non-profit organization. Some call with particular interest in going to work for or starting another group to address the needs of "the poor."

While I do my best to be polite, and while I almost never turn down a call from or an appointment with persons with such interests and concerns, I often want to ask these folks if they've considered therapy!

I'll admit it: I'm a bit tired today.

Don't get me wrong. I'm nowhere near being ready to stop, to quit or to give up. They'll have to drag me off out of the ring by my feet, cause I'll never call it quits.

I'm just tired.

I won't be quitting anytime soon because the last 15 years have helped me understand my fatigue. Let me attempt an explanation of sorts. Maybe you'll relate.

Everyone starts with charity. We want to relieve the immediate and intolerable suffering of people who are hungry, homeless, rejected, marginalized, left out or behind, failing, jailed, addicted, lost, ill, or in some other fashion cut off from life today.

Never mind tomorrow. Action is called for today, and often now.

We can think about the challenges of tomorrow during the middle of the night, but we must never turn away from today and its presenting pain.

Charity focuses narrowly on today. It concerns itself with the needs and complaints and fears of right now. And, it seeks to deliver direct relief, one person at a time to do its work.

Charity can wear you out.

Not only does it direct attention to the immediate and persistent suffering of today, it forces those engaged in relief to work hard to bring help, but it also demands that those who do so also devote considerable time and effort to enlisting the assistance of outsiders who must be urged, cajoled and motivated to provide funding for the enterprises of compassion. Like the work performed in the relief of suffering, the gifts must come today as well.

Recently, a good friend pointed out the hard, but obvious, truth that every non-profit must almost completely recapitalize itself every year in order to carry on its work. Take it from me, that is a tall order.

No matter how we might wish it were otherwise, charity endures. It is essential and it grows tiresome the longer you stay at it. This is true because charity seldom if ever reaches the scale demanded to achieve the systems change needed to keep folks from falling into conditions calling for charity's relief. As suffering continues, charitable gifts must be subscribed, solicited and recognized with a view to the ongoing need for more and continued donations.

Those who work among "the poor" long enough and with enough "success" sooner or later recognize the need to influence and adjust the systemic forces that contribute to the creation of poverty and to the conditions that keep people living with less than they really require.

Such recognition leads to an entirely different, new and even more challenging body of work. To change the system of things requires lots of hours, study, relationship formation and building, negotiation, influencing and becoming generally "political" in a non-partisan and practical way.

Somewhere in between traditional charity work and the work of systems influence and reform, you run into hybrid opportunities through which non-profits working with "the poor" can access new sources of funding from the public sector. These funds are not typically designed to create systemic changes, but they do allow organizations to grow to a new scale that produces more impact with more sustainable stability and that touches more people.

Here the non-profit leader and organization must remain clear-headed, lest he or she think that the new funding and the increased scale ensures the necessary change to turn back the forces that keep people in poverty. The funding is nice, and brings with it a new sort of influence, but the organization that grows content enough to "stay put" in this phase or state needs to reconsider its values and its strategy.

To cut deeply at the heart of the system that produces so many millions of "poor people" policy work must be done continually.

In my view, this policy reform will require new public approaches from government at all levels from local to federal. In addition, the way business functions must also be included in any viable approach to working for systemic change on behalf of the growing masses of "poor people."

In short, government and business must learn to function differently as joint investors in the reform and renewal of the economic life of those at the bottom of our society. Such new partnerships and investments will be based on the recognition that lifting the poorest among us will benefit us all, and in surprising ways. For most impact such new partnerships must be crafted at the local, regional, state and national levels.

Then, there is the community itself. My neighbors who live with me in inner city Dallas must remain the most important characters of all in the play in which we are all actors. They have the leading roles. The script must unfold around them and their lines. We must hear, recognize, analyze and honor the heroic parts they play, understanding at every turn they have been left out of the production for far too long by most producers and not a few directors!

Working with a community, truly honoring community people who also understand deep poverty through their personal experience takes time, effort, patience, humility and a different sort of appreciation, understanding and wisdom that is not naturally part of our national value system. In my view, this is our most important, most rewarding and most demanding work of all.

Effective non-profit leaders interested in affecting the change we need will spend themselves in all of these areas and concern themselves with all of these matters.

The result can be weariness and fatigue.

Today, I am tired.

Ironically, when I experience the next breakthrough, it will be after lots and lots of very tiring work in these varied arenas. But, in the breakthrough I will find the renewal that keeps me going for another round.

Every breakthrough, by definition, means that low-income neighbors of mine or groups of such neighbors all across the city and beyond will find it easier to do better for themselves and for their families, if they are blessed to have families.

So, if you want to talk about any of this, consider calling a counselor first before you call me.

If you insist on talking to me, I'll be ready to visit. . .next week, after Labor Day.
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A poverty-free world

Nobel Peace Prizer winner Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the world's largest micro credit lending network in the world, the Grameen Bank, understands that poverty is not the fault of the poor.

People are poor largely thanks to forces at work outside of their control.

The vast majority of the world's poor work incredibly hard and want to do better.

The lack of credit, education, proper nutrition, access to transportation and the unrelenting struggle to simply survive keep the poor trapped in poverty.

Yunus' vision is of a "poverty-free world." One of his trademark statements is that "the word human and poverty should never be used in relation to one another."

People were not meant to be poor.

Listen to his wisdom here.

Tell me what you think.

America's economy and markets are quite different from those of the developing world. How do we apply Yunus' values and vision here?

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So much for "free markets"

Decisions about how systems and institutions work have consequences in the lives of real people.

It's just a fact.

This is particularly true when it comes to public policy relative to work, wages, protection or the lack thereof from so-called "free markets," home ownership, education, nutrition. . .the list goes on.

So far this year in the U. S. we have seen the loss of over 600,000 jobs.

Home foreclosures continue to soar.

During the last chaotic week, we've witnessed the near meltdown of our financial markets, a series of events that rivals the circumstances preceding the Great Depression. Major, historic financial institutions failed or have been bought for a song.

People who argue ad nauseum for unregulated, "free markets" make assumptions about human nature that simply don't hold up. When living in an effective community in which the rights, needs and dreams of all are to be honored; common values, mores and standards of behavior need to be regulated.

We are now witnessing the results of a policy trend committed to deregulation that has been in play since at least 1980.

Completely "free markets" might be something to consider if we all were operating from the same position of strength and opportunity. But, of course, this is not the case today and will never be the case.

Regulation imposes safety guards against the exploitation that always results when systems are built to maximize profit for one group at the expense of other groups, usually much larger in sheer numbers, but much weaker in economic power and political influence.

No system of regulation is perfect. But, it doesn't need to be perfect, just workable, consistent and engaged in the important work of defining and enforcing standards of fairness and equity for everyone.

Consider the subprime mortgage crisis. Lots of people in this country have been talked into or better, pressured into mortgage agreements that allowed them to purchase homes far beyond their ability to pay. The agreements were designed not to assist the prospective homeowner, but the lender. In fact, some deals worked better for lenders when agreements failed after a couple of years thanks to credits and write offs that were built into the systems at work in such real estate transactions. Variable rate mortgages, coupled with sub-prime approaches to financing the deals at the outset, vaulted the nation to the brink of absolute economic disaster.

Greed kills.

Possibly home buyers should have been smarter. But, really now, let's face it, that is not what the system required or even desired. And then, there is the nation's attitude toward homeownership as an essential element in realizing the "American dream."

Since the mid-1990s, we've observed a commitment on the part of the federal government in both Clinton and Bush administrations to open up home ownership to more and more Americans.

As this policy unfolded, it became clear that a major part of this commitment would be financed by cutting funding from programs designed for the poorest Americans--we watched as the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) cut funding for programs aimed at people who likely will never own homes to benefit those who might play in the amazing expansion of ownership made possible by unregulated markets.

While everyone agrees that the number of Americans owning homes needs to increase, we grew more and more uncomfortable with how the new process was being funded with both public and private dollars. Furthermore, our government explicitly and implicitly encouraged private sector funders to get in the game on terms that were favorable to lenders, but not necessarily the new homeowners.

No regulation.

"Free markets" often cut people to shreds because they are not designed with the community, with everyone in mind. (By the way, can we agree that Wall Street is not the community for which we are most concerned here?)

Greed kills.

Paul had it right when he warned that "the love of money is the root of all evil."

I'm sure I'll catch it big time from lots of folks who read here who believe that freedom in the marketplace is the most sacred value of all.

Frankly, if you can make that argument this week, I know there is nothing I can say to change your mind.

But, I'm not writing for you. I continue to post because I believe sound public policy devoted to justice and fairness will be a big part of any solution to the problems facing both the poorest of the poor and the middle class in our nation. And, it is crucial to sustaining workable communities.

In fact, I'm trying to get these two groups to see how much they have in common these days! If these two groups ever partner with one another and consider how their mutual self-interests could work together, we'll wake up in a new America.

One last note. Through all sorts of situations and circumstances from Y2K to 9-11 to the War in Iraq to escalating fuel costs to our current financial crisis, the poor serve as my instructors. People who know grinding poverty teach me how to cope and to live one day at a time. Their friendship and faith is a priceless gift in my life.

Markets come and go.

The faithful endure.

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