“What do you think would happen if the EBT system went down, for a week, month, or for good? What would happen to the black community if the welfare system totally collapsed?”
“I say literal mass starvation within a week or two...”
-Guest
Literal and mass, yes.
Starvation?
I don’t think so.
Let’s break it down, at least in my part of town.
February 2015, robberies of cabbies, sedan drivers and hackers doubled over the previous year
March, 2015, for profit [stolen for resale] looting, during store hours, became common in majority black retail outlets, even when cops were on hand
April, 2015, the Harm City riots and purge, in which the BPD, National Guard, military contractors, and cops from six federal agencies and as many surrounding municipalities, were only able to secure between 1 and 5% of Baltimore City, and left the entire three precincts of Eastern Baltimore County unprotected as gangs of blacks with blunt weapons hospitalized dozens of white men
May, 2015, after the eight largest police department in the U.S.—tasked with securing the 26th largest city [
] utterly failed to impose its will on less than 1,000 high school students, and suffered demoralization, Baltimore gang bangers went on a killing spree that sent Baltimore to the top homicide slot in the nation.
February, 2016, carjacking and violence against cabbies, sedan drivers and hackers is on the increase, and resale looting is increasing over last year steadily, having enjoyed a steady rise over the last nine months, due to boldness engendered by last spring’s uprising.
I spoke with two current operators of supermarkets today, about the eventuality of EBTs going down, or of another round of martyred-drug-dealer-inspired unrest:
Ben, Clientele 98% Black
“Unless we get lucky enough to become a National Guard staging area or police redoubt, those fuckers will flatten this place. Just this week we had two of them fighting cops on the property—two of them. What about twenty or two hundred? The cops barely handled the two. This is an oasis in the middle of a food desert, nothing but potato chips and booze from here to the Beltway [the I-695 loop]. It ‘ill look like a goddamn documentary on army ants. They’re not gonna starve, when they know they can overwhelm the cops. If it happens here, you better drop the Navy Seals in to get my fat ass out.”
Josh, Clientele 65% Black
[Followed by a spasm of eye-reddening laughter.]
“Christ, Mo, call in an airstrike!
“Seriously, you would have thought it would get better when the EBT drops were finally spread out to the point where we were not on the verge of a riot every month. Remember—fucking Retirement Man—goddamned deserter—that EBT cash hits on day one. Those fat bastards have no cash after the first week. The food drops are spread out all the way to the twenty-fifth, so it should not be as bad as it was—I mean it’s easier to schedule staff, but shrink is still up.
“Look, these fuckers are not starving. They aren’t even hungry. I have this four-hundred-and-fifty-pound fucker who looks like Haystacks Calhoun in blackface, in here stealing thirty-eight hams—at forty bucks a piece. This guys is wearing silk and Rockports—fucking Richard Roundtree on Similac—and loads up his pickup truck while the hundred-and-twenty pound rent a cop is trying to get through to nine-one-one and Betty is blowing up my cell, while I’m at the bar watching some other piece-of-shit sell somebody else’s T-bone steaks to an off duty cop!
“You know the deal, Mo, as soon as the smash and grab crowd knows that the actual starving kids, whose dope addict parents spend all their welfare on drugs, will be getting desperate, they will flatten this place. There won’t be a window left on the front end. The registers will be gone—the ATM machine towed away, the stockroom emptied to load stolen trucks, and all eight-hundred-grand in inventory will be sold out of vans and trucks and cars all over West Baltimore for about a hundred-thousand, and eventually some fucking towel-head will open a liquor store here! I just hope it happens during nice weather, so I can go fishing while this shithole burns.”
Urban crime is not about poverty, need or hunger, but entitlement, greed and anger.
All of these people make more money than I do just for declining to work, and I'm not looting.
The only real variable is opportunity—can it be done without getting shot or locked up?
What will happen, if EBTs go down, or the grid does down, is that the Police and National Guard will force suburbanites to feed, clothe and house the inner city refugees, emptying home larders at community depots and redistributing the food while the oppressed are assigned quarters in the houses of the privileged.
Bet on it.
I'm not worthy, but i am much obliged! To go old timey...
There is a novel in this, you could even call it "Bet it on".
The first 1978 zombie movie, called Dawn of the black, wasn't set in a shopping mall for no reason!
And the last paragraph reminded me of Bayous'
Lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-learned-from-hurricanes-katrina.html
Where he explains how during disaster:
- Your personal supplies and facilities may be commandeered without warning, receipt or compensation
- Those who thought themselves safe from the disaster were often not safe from refugees
- Self-reliance seems to draw suspicion upon you from the authorities
- People who were prepared were frequently mobbed/threatened by those who weren't
- When help gets there, you may get it whether you like it or not!
- Expect rescuers (including law enforcement) to enforce a distinctly un-Constitutional authority
All this lends credence to your point, really do bet on it.
Bet it on, or even better, EBT on it!