So the Senate would like to punish people with criminal records now, and everyone is ok with that.

Both Colorlines and Off the Charts Blog had pieces on the Senate’s acceptance of a bipartisan deal to kick formerly incarcerated people off food stamps. Take a minute and collect your rage.

Sen. Vitter of Louisiana offered the amendment to permanently drop anyone ever convicted of a violent crime from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which was added to the farm bill. Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that Democrats in the Senate allowed it to happen.

Colorlines provided Greenstein’s comments:

“The amendment would bar from SNAP (food stamps), for life, anyone who was ever convicted of one of a specified list of violent crimes at any time—even if they committed the crime decades ago in their youth and have served their sentence, paid their debt to society, and been a good citizen ever since. In addition, the amendment would mean lower SNAP benefits for their children and other family members. So, a young man who was convicted of a single crime at age 19 who then reforms and is now elderly, poor, and raising grandchildren would be thrown off SNAP, and his grandchildren’s benefits would be cut…Democrats accepted it without trying to modify it to address its most ill-considered aspects. Two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, elderly or the disabled, and two-fifths of SNAP households live below half the poverty line.”

 As you may expect, if this farm bill passes, this amendment would hit African Americans hard. African Americans are after all incarcerated at a higher rate proportionally than most racial groups in the US, if not the most (I don’t have those figures handy). But I’m going to say it: that is the intended consequence. Greenstein notes this would be especially traumatic among, “[p]oor elderly African Americans convicted of a single crime decades ago by segregated Southern juries.”

Note that this would impact people retroactively. If you have already been approved you would be kicked off, which I know it the language, but I assumed it was referring to current applications. Vitter is apparently embracing some kind of logic, I have no idea what kind because when you strip people of their only income (it is really difficult to get a job with a felony conviction) violent crime probably won’t decrease. Colorlines notes that Vitter isn’t opposed to giving men who have hired sex workers SNAP benefits…I wonder what is so different about the two groups?

I’m calling it: this is a racist amendment that buys into the mythos of African Americans disproportionately using welfare/SNAP/etc because they are lazy, violent, and/or incapable of work. None of these things are true. What is true is systemic racism, sexism, and classism which keep some demographics more dependent than others. Additionally, this is an attempt to persecute citizens who have served their time and further remove them from society.

Woman Steals Purse Back from Teens

A woman in New York was hit and had her purse stolen by three teens, but the story doesn't end there.  She apparently chased after the youths, grabbed one, and took her purse back.  While she had the one the other teens pleaded that she let him go.  In the end two of the kids were arrested, and she received her purse back.  The NYPD does not support chasing after assailants.

I guess, I don't understand attacking random people on the street because particularly in New York you never know who you're going to attack.  Those kids didn't.