On the national celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, you put out the political dog whistle to a South Carolina audience that “blacks should want jobs, not food stamps,” and calling our nation’s first African American president the “food stamp president.” You also disrespected the moderator – Juan Williams – by calling him by his first name (almost like calling him “boy”), when he called you by your former title of “Speaker.” I wonder if you’d been so bold if Herman Cain were still in the race?
On my blog post September 16, 2010, I wrote about poverty, particularly those that had been driven into poverty due to the recession.
One of those people…was me.
I also posted an article from Black Voices regarding the extreme effort college-educated African Americans were putting forth to get jobs with not as demonstrative success as the rest of the country.
That was also…me.
I have a degree in Engineering Physics from North Carolina A and T State University. I worked in a warehouse at UPS with that degree, slinging boxes between the hours of 3 – 9 AM, Monday – Friday making $6.52/hour. Do the math…
And yes, Mr. Gingrich, I went on food stamps…, with a degree in Physics.
I wrote a blog that became a book that described my angst, my self-doubt, my hurt pride, my desire to provide for my family in the manner I’d trained myself in the sciences to provide.
I now work in New York back in the industry I’d left eight years ago, making an income that allows me to provide for that same family…honorably. That was not a government program, sir: that was the Grace of God.
You cannot logically paint a broad brush on any one group’s desire over another to remain on food stamps – your data and political dog whistle is quite inaccurate: “Despite significantly higher participation rates for Blacks and persons of Hispanic origin, 65 percent of all participants were White.” (Census.gov)
I am not running for president, I am the “We the People” you’re running in the GOP primaries to qualify to govern.
Your behavior in this primary process is an abomination to the political process the Founding Fathers – you say you revere – established.
The day after celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. your crass, unprofessional comments demean the station you supposedly “occupy.” Perhaps after your bath, may I suggest soap applied to the orifice in front of the oval called your face? Please be suitably aggressive in application.
I don’t debate, but I do vote! If you were to get the nomination by some stretch of a miracle, you won’t be getting mine.
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