The Poor Have No Voice

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (To read the entire article, please go the the link above) It’s said that most of the congressmen, the representatives of the American people, are from the wealthy class. The wealthy and the privileged in this society, who have benefited most from the federal debt, corporate restructurings and plant relocations, are the people charged with representing the poor. Can they adequately represent the poor? ......In the 1992 presidential debates, a young woman asked the candidates how can they, who have never known suffering in their lives, lead the American people and bring a healing to what ails the country? The closest people to the proper representation of the masses and their suffering are the Blacks, women, Native Americans, poor Whites and Hispanics. In the Congress, the closest representative of the poor is the Congressional Black Caucus. Each year, they have developed and presented before Congress a budget that would keep America strong, while at the same time looking out for the masses of America’s people. Each year, their efforts have been belittled and their budget has been voted down. ......In truth, the poor are voiceless in society as it is presently structured. Every president in recent history has been of the privileged class. This does not mean that being wealthy disqualifies one for leadership. Being wealthy does mean that there is a lack of an experiential vantage point that we must pay careful attention to. It was Mr. Ross Perot, among all the candidates in the ‘92 presidential election, who recognized—and openly stated—that the wealth he has achieved is from the poor. Now he sees that same country and those same working-class people who gave him the opportunity to be a billionaire, going down the tubes.