Urban Thought Collective

Even with the candidates unable to give to a straight answer during Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, one point was made crystal clear…the candidates are only concerned with America’s middle class, wealthy, and Corporate America.
For approximately 90 minutes while a lot of words were exchanged, they didn’t include poverty, homeless, urban, underclass, or minority. Those words and who they represent were never mentioned once by either of the candidates. However, the phrase middle class was mentioned 13 times, wealthy 6 times, and Corporate America and Main Street 4 times.

For the record, the word poor was mentioned once, only not relationship to nation’s economic crisis. The word poor made its way into the conversation when Governor Sarah Palin responded to debate moderator Gwen Ifill’s question of which is the greater threat, a nuclear Pakistan, unstable Pakistan, nuclear Iran?
Palin responded, “…and an issue like that taken up by a presidential candidate goes beyond naiveté and goes beyond poor judgment.”

Add to that, maverick was mentioned 15 times and Wall Street and the state of Alaska were mentioned 12 times each.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2007, 37.3 million people in America were in poverty, up from 36.5 million in 2006.

In terms of race, the percentage of Blacks living in poverty was 24.5 percent, Hispanics 21.5 percent, Asians 10.2 percent, and non-Hispanic whites average poverty level was 8.2 percent.

In 2007, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 9.8 percent and 7.6 million. Married-couple families had a poverty rate of 4.9 percent (2.8 million), compared with 28.3 percent (4.1 million) for female-householder, no-husband-present families.

Among states and the District of Columbia, poverty rates ranged from 7.1 percent for New Hampshire to 20.6 percent for Mississippi. The only state where the poverty rate increased was Michigan where Detroit had the highest poverty rate at 33.8 percent.

So why is this important?

Ever since Senator John Edwards left the presidential race, there has been little mention of America’s poor…it’s all about America’s middle class and the vice-presidential debate was no different. In reality—why would it be?

At the end of the day, when you add up the numbers, those living in poverty are more apt to look like me and you. And even though Senator Barack Obama is admittedly African-American, he knows like McCain knows, that the people who are currently engaged in the political process and are more likely to come out and vote in November, aren’t those living in the projects, cardboard boxes, homeless shelters, or on bus park benches.

Why?

Because if America’s underclass were more engaged in the political process that would change the entire landscape of this race—not to mention give Democrats the upper hand seeing as how this demographic would more than likely vote Democratic. It would also mean that the candidates would no longer have the luxury of just focusing on America’s middle class and wealthy, but would actually have to address issues like the rise in homelessness or risk losing votes.

The middle class—for all they may be going through—aren’t homeless…yet.

How do I know?

Jasmyne Cannick is a critic and commentator based in Los Angeles who writes about pop culture, race, class, sexuality, and politics as it relates to the African-American community. A regular contributor to NPR’s ‘News and Notes,’ she was chosen as one Essence Magazine’s 25 Women Shaping the World. She can be reached at www.jasmynecannick.com or www.myspace.com/jasmynecannick.