Two Americas Live in the United States

Floor Speech

TWO AMERICAS LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES -- (House of Representatives - September 14, 2005)

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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding. More importantly, I want to thank her for her passion, her leadership, and her dedication to trying to make sure that America does in fact become the land that we often hear about but the land that we have not yet experienced.

Katrina has pulled the cover, in a real sense and in many ways, off the whole question of poverty, which is something that we do not talk about nearly enough. We often talk about other kinds of issues and other kinds of things, but very seldom do we get to the core of it in terms of saying that poverty continues to be a major problem for a large segment of the American population. As a matter of fact, we saw, and people have already indicated, individuals who did not have enough resources, could not put together enough money, did not have transportation money, who simply could not get away, who could not get out of the path of the oncoming hurricane because their purses were empty.

But they are not empty only in New Orleans. When we look across America, we see large population groups. I think of young men, for example, in my city, the City of Chicago, the city that we call the ``city of the big shoulders,'' a city where more than 50 percent of all of the young African American males between the ages of 16 and 22 do not have a job, do not go to school. How could there be anything other than poverty in a situation like that? I run into individuals in their early 30s who have never had a job in their entire lives, never had a job, who automatically then become a part of the underground economy in many of these areas where we see concentrations of poverty.

I was hoping that we would use this opportunity, but it is clear that that is not the direction in which we are headed. This provides us with a tremendous opportunity to develop massive training programs for individuals so that they can go back and rebuild their own communities, rebuild their own homes. They could develop the skills, and they could experience something that they have never done before in their lives: They could have a job. They would have the opportunity to work.

But even if they get the opportunity, are we saying that they can be paid less than minimum wage in some instances? Where they are almost put back into a slave-like condition, where they are working but at the end of the week have not earned enough for basic food, shelter, and clothing?

So I am afraid that not only is the mishandling something that happened immediately, but it looks as though we are going to mishandle the rebuilding and the reconstruction and the redevelopment of those affected areas.

So I join with my colleagues in suggesting and calling for a real effort on the part of the administration to make sure that those individuals get a chance not only to live, because a fellow named Thomas Wolf said something once: ``To every man his chance, his golden opportunity, to be and to become whatever his talent, manhood, ambition, and hard work will combine to make him.'' And, of course, if Wolf was around today, he would probably say ``him and her,'' or ``her and him.'' That is supposed to be the promise of America, and that is what we call upon the American people to make sure comes out of the tragedy of Katrina.

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