"It’s not that these people don’t have a voice. It’s that even when they’re shouting at the top of their lungs, their voices are too rarely heard by those who would much rather speak for them than listen to them." --Gary Younge, The Nation
For over 50 years my neighborhood has not been represented even by the representatives we vote into office for no sooner are they sworn in than they are co-opted into a system that feeds on the working class to benefit Greensboro's Elites and connected Developers. Left, right, Democrat or Republican they all turn out to be the same-- take from the working class to give to the rich, destroy our neighborhoods to support their precious downtown. Three times in my lifetime Greensboro has gone through downtown renovation with the end result being the need for more downtown renovation.
Build megasites and industrial parks at taxpayer expense way out on the county lines where those who need jobs most can't get to work and those who get the jobs move out of the city to be closer to work leaving those left behind to pay the bills-- where's the sanity in that?
And those who claim to speak and stand for us, black and white, say we must give them their way to get back what was ours in the first place. Isn't that like telling me I have to kiss someone's ass to have what belongs to me? You might call that politics but as far as this ol' redneck son of a Southern sharecropper is concerned kissing ass is kissing ass no matter what you want to call it. And my Daddy quit sharecropping so his family wouldn't have to kiss ass.
Can you hear me now? You will. Like it or not, you will and there's nothing you can do to stop me and a lot more people from making our voices heard.
