“Equity: Where does it leave those who are left out?”
There is no rural social justice – there is no such thing as Rural Social Justice in any government policy making.
Rural communities are excluded from our national consciousness: a vacant space in everything from “Cost of Living” calculations to cultural identity.
They are subordinated to political agendas, corporate profits, and agricultural pollution — bullied and deprived unseen in the shadow of a Black urban overclass.
“The real tragedy of these small enclaves of marginality and poverty is that people are playing a game of life that has been structured in such a way that they are required to play but prevented from winning” wrote Janet Fitchen in her groundbreaking “Poverty in Rural America” – four decades later: nothing has been built on that ground — and the poverty, neglect and drugs have long since taken it back over.