Tavis Smiley is a radio talk show host, philanthropist, author, and an advocate for social injustices. Smiley is a Indiana University graduae and is well known for his former late night talk show on BET after hours.
In an interview Smiley says “1992 was the year of the woman and now we’re dealing with a war on women in 2012”. “Women are much more likely to be poor than men, and more than a million children have fallen into poverty, and more than 500,000 have fallen into extreme poverty” — that is, living on less than $2 a day — “since 2010.” These are facts and sadly they’re facts that will never change. From the start of modern society women have seldom had more rights, privilege, or power than men. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that women were given the right to vote, that was fifty years ago.
Recent census data shows that the number of children who live in extreme poverty has doubled from 1996 to 2011, from 1.4 million to 2.8 million. Allow me to remind you that these numbers are schewed due to reporting flaws in census data collection.
He cites the lack of female contribution in the creation of new laws and policies. The lack of female contribution to major female issues in America led him to create the symposium at New York University on Sunday. It’s called “Made Visible, Women Children, and Poverty in America”.
“When it became an issue, all the talking heads who were talking about it were men,” he said. “If you’re talking about a panel on women in poverty, [then] who best to make the case? I recognize that what I can do is use the platform that I’ve been blessed to have.
“Politicians can speak to the concerns of the middle class, but they never speak to the ranks of the ‘perpetually poor,'” he said in response. “That won’t happen this year, because the new poor are the former middle class.”
2pac Shakur said it in a song “changes” he said “its time for us as a people to start making some changes, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other, you see the old way was working so its on us to do what we gotta do to survive” his words breathe truth into this situation. It seems so simple to start treating each other right and bringing change but we haven’t.
The way I see it is, the slaves who revolted, the activists who sought change worked and devised plans to create a better future for those who would come after them. They succeeded far beyond what they could ever imagine, I challenge my generation and our youth to do better. We have the resources, now its time to utilize them to better the status of our children and women.
