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.
