[HPN] Fw: WLC: LINC: The Digital Divide and Organizing Groups

[I CAN! America]

---- Original Message -----
From: <wmvoice@execpc.com>
To: <workfare-wlc@igc.topica.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2000 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: WLC: LINC: The Digital Divide and Organizing Groups



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What in the world does 'digital divide' mean ?
        Re Internet: I find the email addicting, instant communication
with a few
people who I want to talk with. But I can not bring myself to take the
other parts of
the internet seriously. I will only go thru the jump, wait, jump,
superficial jump,
wait, be disappointed, wait, jump, superficial etc etc. Too much like
what I remember
tv to be like, with added finger interaction. I just do not have the
patience and
time in life to do that, except when abolutely unavoidable.
        I imagine there are lots of other older mothers like me who
will feel the
same when and if they have the great opportunity to browse the
internet. (I admit, I
never applied for a job on the internet, Dirk. But I am 55 years old
BWR --before
welfare reform).
        For me welfare was a way to go to college ( I couldn't believe
I would ever
go to college as a mother.)--for 4 years.
        Then welfare was a way for me to work full time and get a small
support check
and medical card--for 6 years.
        Then welfare was a way for me to work part-time and stay home
3-11pm  most
days with my teens--for 3 years.
           And finally welfare was a way for me to create a national
mothers'
newspaper--for 2 years,
working with other mothers and children, doing the impossible.
           I know it's my fault that these young babies are on the
buses at 6 am. My
fault that women have to stay with the batterers. My fault the young,
able-bodied
moms are running day and night for the walgreens and walmarts. My fault
the disabled
moms are dying off.
            I USED that meagre cash support system to get my kids what
they needed,
while also getting what I needed. So they say I "got over." They have
to rid the
system of women like me. Sigh.
            This is for Guida West who asked me to tell the
"Welfare Made a Difference" Campaiagn ( 39 Broadway, 10th floor c/o
cfrc, new York,
ny 10006; 212-894-8082, Email: wmadcampaign@yahoo.co ) what welfare
meant to me.
            A local African American newpaper editor lambasted me as a
"welfare
missionary." What can I say? As mamas, the first and foremost thing we
need is cash.
Welfare is cash. Yet everyone talks about "services." Cheap housing and
cash and
safe, fast transportation come to mind when I remember what I needed.
But we NEVER
(all right rarely) get any of that!!!! With cash on the top of the
list.
            Why is cash such a dirty word? Cash. Kids cost. Obvious,
but rarely
mentioned in all the professional stuff I read on the emails, in the
government
proclamations, in the proposals that people get millions and billions
of dollars for,
in the letters to the editors. No mention of cash. Lots of alleged
"services," mostly
psychobabble related and no way helpful to a poor family.
            Odd, aina hey? (As we say on the white far south side of
Milwaukee.)

Pat Gowens, Welfare Warriors

p.s. Send a picture to "welfare made a difference" also if you have
one.


To post a message to this listserv, send an e-mail to
workfare-wlc@igc.topica.com.
Welfare Law Center http://www.welfarelaw.org
LincProject http://www.lincproject.org

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