Job Proposal Poem by Josephine DixonBanks

The community has no immunity from the systematic demise
Of inner city enterprise

This demise creates economic development for administrations
In the midst of inner city death cries

Poverty, an opportunity for the business community to procure
Appropriations for the revitalization of bureaucratic relations
Poverty works, it is the hidden agenda that doth lurk

Anti-poverty programs comprehensive and coordinated
Jobs for social workers, counselors and bureaucrats created
While communities, neighborhoods and ghettos waited and waited

Urban Renewal 1949, Community Action Program 1964
Model Cities 1966, Community Development Block Grants 1974
Urban Development Action Grants 1977, Enterprise Zones 1980,
Empowerment Zones 1993

The community has no immunity from the systematice demise
Of inner city enterprise

Poverty and crime are permitted to murder the inner city
Without remorse, without mercy, without justice, without pity

The need for the slums sanctions traditional deterioration of
Social humanity
Representative of, representative of bureaucratic insanity

The community has no immunity from systematic demise
Of inner city enterprise