There Is No Excuse For This!

Freddie Gray was murdered in the Sandstown-Winchester area of Baltimore.

The unemployment rate in Sandstown-Winchester is 51.8%. The national average is 5.8%

The median income in Sandstown-Winchester is $22,750. The national median average is $51,000.

A black infant born in Sandstown-Winchester is 9 times more likely to die before the age of 1 than a white infant.

The Eight counties surrounding Sandstown-Winchester have mortality rates that are worse than North Korea’s. The mortality rate in Sandstown-Winchester is worse than the mortality rate in Syria.

Sandstown-Winchester is not alone. There are communities across this country that are just as bad if not worse.

There is no excuse for this.

In the wealthiest most prosperous country in the world there is no excuse for this.

This has nothing to do with police brutality or racism or the laziness of the “takers’ and the 47%.

This is about a conscious decision to focus our resources overseas while entire communities here at home are dying. It’s about spending $1.1 trillion borrowed dollars on an unnecessary and unwinnable war in Iraq while economic despair turns cities here at home into war zones. Add another $2 billion per week for the war in Afghanistan.

Think where we would be right now had we invested that money into our communities…into good paying jobs, education, research and infrastructure.

There is no excuse for this.