Today time after time, I’ve read the same old familiar refrain. It goes like this, something is better than nothing. If you’re black in America it’s the mantra of pacification. It the rationale given when they tell you we have to go slow. It’s the justification for treating some people as less than human.
This fight we are engaged in regarding the funding for build back better reminds me of that go slow argument. When people like Joe Manchin say that they worry that it will create a culture of entitlement it’s really the same kind of code speak. What he really means that if they spend your money 💰 on improving your lives Heaven forbid you might get accustom to it. You might even grow to expect it as the norm. If that happened the game would be over. They’d be forced to do the right thing. So instead of doing the right thing they propose a half azz solution that temporarily addresses some of the issues to convince the people that they’ve won.
A halfway solution is something that black people are accustom to. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was a never meant to fix the problem. It was meant to deliver what looked like a victory but it was never a victory, it was the articulation of a policy that no one ever intended to honor. Including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 we’ve had six Civil Rights bills. Either we’re retarded as a society or we never meant for there to be equal rights for all citizens. We’ve never had the same conviction and reverence for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments as we’ve had for the second amendment. Think about that. As a society we’ve been more committed to bearing arms than we’ve been to equality or equity.
When people argue that build back better is to expensive they ignore the reality that when the tax cuts were passed we created to classes of tax cuts. One for the corporations and the rich and one for everyone else that didn’t fall into the top of the pyramid. The tax cuts for the top of the pyramid we’re permanent, the tax cuts for everyone else expire after 5 years. Why is that? I know the answer do you.
Proposing funding build back better at half of the original amount guarantees that it will not accomplish what it’s meant to accomplish. It becomes a bandaid to give the illusion of addressing some of the social constructs strangling America. If we fully address those constructs you give people a measure of security which creates a direct challenge to the capitalistic model we embrace today. Greed will not allow that to happen.
It’s not a matter of whether we can afford 3.5 trillion dollars. It comes down to determining our values as a society. The simple truth is that we don’t value ordinary people. They are just cogs in the machine, replaceable by the next cog.
Welcome to the world of black, brown and indigenous people. Not the American dream, but the American lie.
Think!!
Eyes Wide 👀 👁 Open!!!