Posted on 09/06/2005 12:17:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HOUSTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - In the last week, Joseph Brant lost his apartment, walked by scores of dead in the streets, traversed pools of toxic water and endured an arduous journey to escape the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in his hometown New Orleans.
On Sunday, he was praising the Lord, saying the ordeal was a test that ended up dispelling his lifelong distrust of white people and setting his life on a new course. He said he hitched a ride on Friday in a van driven by a group of white folks.
"Before this whole thing I had a complex about white people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a truck driver who, like many of the refugees receiving public assistance in Houston, Texas, is black.
"It was a spiritual experience for me, man," he said of the aftermath of a catastrophe al Qaeda-linked Web sites called evidence of the "wrath of God" striking an arrogant America.
Brant was one of many refugees across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi who gave thought to religion on Sunday, almost a week after the floods changed their lives, perhaps forever.
At the Astrodome in Houston, where 16,000 refugees received food and shelter, Rose McNeely took the floods as a sign from God to move away from New Orleans, where she said her two grown children had been killed in past years in gunfights.
"I lost everything I had in New Orleans," she said. "He brought me here because he knows."
Nearby, others looked for a different kind of higher ground and smoked marijuana in the shade outside the Astrodome.
Inside, Gerald Greenwood, 55, had collected a free Bible but sat watching a science fiction television program above the stands in an enclosed stadium once home to Houston's baseball and football teams. "This is the work of Satan right here," he said of the floods.
The Bible was one of the few books many of the refugees had among their possessions. Several Jehovah's Witnesses walked around thousands of cots to offer their services.
THE WAGES OF SIN
The Salvation Army conducted an outside religious service that included songs such as "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
"Natural disaster is caused by the sin in the world," said Maj. John Jones, the group's area commander. "The acts of God are what happens afterwards ... all the good that happens."
Others took a different view, including Tim Washington, 42, who on Saturday waited at the New Orleans' Superdome to be evacuated. "God made all this happen for a reason. This city has been going to hell in a handbasket spiritually," he said.
"If we can spend billions of dollars chasing after (Osama) bin Laden, can't we get guns and drugs off the street?", he asked. Washington said he stole a boat last Monday and he and a friend, using wooden fence posts as oars, delivered about 200 people to shelter.
The Salvation Army's Jones was one of many trying to comfort victims in Sunday services across several states.
At St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, several hundred local parishioners and storm survivors attended Sunday services. "I wish we could take your broken hearts and give you ours," Rev. Donald Blanchard told the gathering.
Some people walked out of the church in tears mid-service.
At St. Francis Xavier Church, a black Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, the mood was a mix of frustration, bitterness and profound joy. As evacuees stood one by one to introduce themselves, parishioners clapped and cried, celebrating their guests' good fortune in simply being alive.
"For those who were alone in the water, alone on the roof, you might ask 'What did we do to deserve this?'" the Rev. Lowell Case said. "A lot of us think being black may have had something to do with it, being poor and black in New Orleans."
Churches in many states have taken in evacuees and organized aid for people who in many cases had lost everything. But at least some bristled at the role of religion in helping the afflicted.
"We're getting reports of how some religion-based 'aid' groups are trying to fly evangelists into the stricken areas and how U.S. Army chaplains are carrying bibles -- not food or water -- to 'comfort' people," Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheist, said in a statement.
"People need material aid, medical care and economic support -- not prayers and preaching." (Additional reporting by Jim Loney and Michael Peltier in Baton Rouge and Mark Egan in New Orleans)
I'm in Dallas, where we are also taking care of a lot of refugees, and some friends of mine have given over their guest room. What goes unsaid by Greta Van Sustren is that the folks from Louisiana are probably amazed at how clean, well-behaved, efficient and hard-working Texans are because they've never been in a state that's run by Republicans instead of Democrats.
That was a common theme among a few I saw interviewed. They seemed astonished to be treated as people. It's sad. But, it's not surprising considering that Louisiana is concerned that these people will not return. I hope they don't. I hope they can turn their personal disasters into something positive.
Louisiana is looking at them as property, wanted to get them back as quickly as possible and stick them in tent cities until they can get them back into New Orleans, and back into poverty and control. It was disgusting to hear them talk about these people as if they were domesticated animals, unable to adjust to a different way of life. I would be insulted at the insinuation that I am unlike other people and unable to adapt because of my skin color. Jesse Jackson, working for the dems, said as much yesterday. The Blanco spawn evidently were in Houston to try to convince people to return. I really do hope they don't.
I'm all the way down under in Oz and that report brought me to tears! Congrats Texas!
Bump!
At least they can't bury it.
Alternative news is fast becoming the new source of news for mainstream America - cable - talk radio - Internet.
bump
Wha makes you think he was listening to Jesse Jackson? Ever stop to think that maybe he's met the wrong people in life who haven't been exactly so charitable? Maybe. Sometimes it's not all about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Somehow I doubt it. MSM depends on hate and meanspiritedness to make a dollar.
It's internet most of the time for me. Now it's just politicking on television and a desperate ratings grab on tv.
"Before this whole thing I had a complex about white people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a truck driver who, like many of the refugees receiving public assistance in Houston, Texas, is black.
ping.
Nice to hear that some of the poor folks were able to save something from the ravages of the flood.
I hear ya.
Hmmmm, what a startling contrast with how well ran the whole Houston thing is versus what a disaster NOLA is.
BTTT
I know.
I guess there's always a way.
Agree with Tim Washington and others.DO believe the Lord is
shaking America (as He did Israel in the Old Testament and
Jerusalem at the close of the New.) First shake was by 19 Islamic slaves of Allah-a foreign invasion in a war too many refuse to recognize .And too many raged when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson spoke as many of our Founding fathers would have. Second shake was by the Laws of Nature and Natures God. And even here those who have rejected God
look for some godless excuse for blame of fellow men.As George Mason said at the Constitutional Convention Aug.22,1787 --"as naitons cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world so they must be in this .By inevitable chain of causes and effects Providence (God) punishes national
sins with national calamities."When we were that nation
established 1776-1791 -- Our Presidents would have called
for a national Day of fasting humiliation and prayer as both
Lincoln and Jefferson Davis called Americans to prayer during the bloody calamity called our Civil War.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1478335/posts
Some of the Dispossessed Say They Won't Return (sound relieved to get out)
NEW ORLEANS — Displaced residents of this city — especially the poorest blacks, who were hardest hit by the storm — are pondering whether they will try to return to a town the tour guides often missed, one that has suffered decades of crime, corruption and grinding poverty.
... "This city was tough on a lot of them even before the hurricane. A lot of them were already unemployed or had minimum-wage jobs.
..."Family kept us here," Herman Taitt said. "And I love the history of this place. The culture. It's the birthplace of jazz. The food. The parties. You can have a good time here. So we stayed. We allowed ourselves to have a second-class status to Southern white folks."
....."The politicians were crooked, the judges were dirty," she said. "A judge convicted my son for murder and sentenced him to a life sentence, and two months later the judge got convicted."
In 2002, Mayor C. Ray Nagin came to office with a mandate to clean up city corruption and to lift residents out of poverty. ... Nagin ordered the arrests of dozens of city employees on bribery and related charges in the early months of his administration. Several federal corruption investigations were in process when Katrina hit.
In an effort to lower crime, city leaders had set about a controversial plan to replace many public housing projects with single-family homes and businesses. The notorious St. Thomas housing projects, for example, were replaced a few years ago by a Wal-Mart.
Supporters of the program say it is one reason crime had, in fact, been somewhat reduced in New Orleans. Detractors said it would displace black project residents, many of whom went to live in the eastern part of the city, one of the areas hit hardest by the flood.
...
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