Challenge, page 2

Obviously, the Black bourgeoisie will petition for greater visibility in determining the political future of Black people with the gratuitous support of corporate America. They will seek to reverse the rightwing rollback of affirmative action policies, the drastic decline of Black enrollment in colleges, job hiring, promotions, and small business contracts. They will hope to challenge the welfare to workforce programs that increased the number of poverty-stricken single mothers, while cutting Section 8 housing programs causing an increase in homeless families. At the same time, seek to ensure Black and Hispanic homeowners receive a fair share of the mortgage high-interest bailouts, as was observed by President Bush in 2002, “Under 50 percent of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans own a home – That's just too few,” many of whom lost their homes due to bank foreclosures and predatory lenders.

It would be expected the Black bourgeoisie to point to the USDA report, Household Food Security in the United States 2004 that says 38.2 million Americans live in homes suffering from hunger and food insecurity, including 14 million children. Further indicating how the U.S. Conference of Mayors in the December 2006 report titled Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2006 , informed that requests for emergency food assistance increased an average of 7 percent. The study found that 48 percent of those requesting emergency food assistance were families with children, and that 37 percent of adults requesting such assistance were employed. Given these general circumstances affecting Americans, the impact on Black Americans is exacerbated exponentially by institutional racism, of which the Black bourgeoisie should address a Barack presidency.

These socio-economic conditions produced by government policies had the corresponding effect of increasing prison construction that has become the new housing for the poor and unemployed. The 1985 Clinton administration Crime Bill effectively caused the criminalization of poverty, ensuring the poor, unemployed and homeless were likely to suffer the penalties of incarceration, essentially feeding the prison industrial complex. Unfortunately, all candidates in the presidential campaign have completely disregarded the prison industrial complex in fear of looking soft on crime.

However, according to Wikipedia, in 2002 roughly 93.2% of prisoners were male. About 10.4% of all black males in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 were sentence and in prison by year's end, compared to 2.4% of Hispanic males and 1.2% of white males. As of June 30, 2005, about 1 out of every 136 U.S., Inc. residents was incarcerated either in prison or jail. The total amount imprisoned being 2,186,230, with 1,438,701 in State and Federal prisons and 747,529 in local jails. Although Euro-Americans comprise 69 percent of those arrested, institutional racism in the criminal (in)justice system incarcerates Black Americans in disproportionate numbers. It imprisons Black men three times more than Euro-Americans and four times more than did apartheid South Africa. While Black men comprise 53 percent of those in prison, Black people are only 12.5 percent of the entire population. Furthermore, with half of the nation's prison population being Black men, disenfranchising felons has emerged as a modern form of Jim Crow poll tax, effectively suppressing the Black vote. Today, approximately 6 million people cannot vote due to state and federal laws prohibiting felons from voting. In a Spring 1964 speech to activist by El Hajj Malik El Shabazz stated:

“You and I in America are not faced with a segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a government conspiracy… it is the government itself, the government of America , that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of Black people in this country… This government has failed the Negro.” 2

The Black bourgeoisie will need to demand the overhaul of the criminal justice system, at the same time, demand exponential decrease in orphaned Black children burdening the foster care system.

2 Twelve Point Program of the Revolutionary Action Movement, 1964.

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