I hope that audiences understand that there is a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address, that there has always been a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address. In fact, our country is built on the precariousness of black lives, the disposability of black lives.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the inherent vulnerabilities of Black lives in America and the urgent need for societal change.
Yance Ford emphasizes the historical and ongoing precariousness faced by Black individuals in the United States, suggesting that their lives are often viewed as disposable. This acknowledgment calls for a deeper understanding and recognition of systemic issues that perpetuate this vulnerability, urging society to confront and address these injustices.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a social justice rally to highlight the importance of addressing racial inequalities.
Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that.
We have a deeply rooted misconception in our country that unhoused people have done something to deserve their conditions - when the reality is that unhoused people are living the consequences of our government's failure to secure the basic necessities people need to survive.
That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated.
There is no reason why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease, and illiteracy.
Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.
If I wrote in Michael Harrington's time, roughly 50 years later when he published 'The Other America', I'd still be writing about poverty and also entrenched racial injustice.
When you look at the wealth gap - the racial wealth gap - all of that is very much connected to housing.
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