Star Parker, known for her advocacy work for free market solutions to poverty, visited campus Wednesday for a speaking event sponsored by Young Americans for Liberty (YAL).
The theme of Parker’s lecture was that, when left free of regulation, a capitalist market can effectively resolve many of the sources of poverty in America.
“I believe in American exceptionalism … my life story embodies American exceptionalism,” said Star Parker.
Parker spent over seven years living on and off welfare before she was able to earn a college degree and start her own business. After a series of riots in Los Angeles left her business ruined in 1992, Parker began to become interested in public policy, and eventually founded the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), an organization devoted to finding solutions to the poverty found within urban centers across the country.
“The answer to poverty is personal responsibility, but I also started looking at the … chaos that had interrupted my life’s work at that point,” said Parker.
One of the most significant issues for Parker was the breakdown in traditional family structures found in cities throughout the United States.
“In 2009 … the poverty rate for children in homes with married parents was 11 percent, while the poverty rate for children in homes … headed by a single mom that same year was 44.3 percent,” said Parker.
Another view highlighted was the idea that relationships exist between family and education that directly determine how an individual will fare economically throughout life.
“The relationship between crime and poverty … and poverty to the lack of education … and to the lack of family structure–they are all connected,” said Parker.
Parker also spent significant time critiquing many current government incentives, such as welfare and subsidized housing (HUD), which are designed to combat poverty.
“Society is collapsing as a result of addiction to government … a lack of tradition … (a) lack of education… people need to get out of these broken schools, broken healthcare policies, broken housing policies …We need people in Washington who believe in limited roles of government … Capitalism is the moral engine for us to create jobs and prosperity,” said Parker.
Some of these views were met with opposition by some of the students in attendance and many voiced concerns over certain ideas presented in Parker’s speech.
“It’s crazy how much I can agree to the problems while being in total opposition to the solution … She fails to address qualitative socio-economic forces, and refuses to empathize with the experiences of economically marginalized groups,” said Nick Bochenek, senior.
Other students were impressed with Parker’s national standing.
“I thought it was great for YAL to have such a popular speaker” said Amelia Bartenschlag, sophomore.
This event is designed to be the first of many events put on by YAL.
“[This is the] start of a dialogue on such an important topic that is plaguing our society right now,” said Garrett Kehr, sophomore and president of YAL.
Those wishing to learn more about Star Parker can visit her website www.urbancure.org/. The next YAL meeting will be Feb. 3 at 9 p.m. in Blackmore 119.
