I am bothered by all the racist talk on here of late, especially people pretending to talk like ghetto blacks. Enough of that already.
That said, it is hard for me to keep an open heart and continue to donate when the other side calls America racist, this was all the fault of Republicans and white people, etc.
I am also concerned about how much money this "relief" operation is going to cost. Is it going to be a lottery for people who never took care of themselves or planned for unforeseen circumstances?
Thank you for your post.
The ideologues who do this are no more representative of the other side than the modern-day KKK'ers on this board are of the Right.
Only a small minority sees this event as the result of a right -wing conspiracy of overt racism. Only a small minority thinks that those blacks got what they deserved. The majority - and indeed, the only people whose opinions are worth listening to - recognize that this is a tragedy caused by nature, and exacerbated by the gap between rich and poor found in America and by incompetance by New Orleans, Louisiana, and Federal officials.
Pay no mind to the racists - either the ones who take the entitlement mentality or the ones who think those blacks got what they deserved. No one gives a crap what they think. They don't speak for me.
Yes, it will be, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help the people who can truly USE the help and could get a leg up with this.
It has been amusing to see folks on TV being surprised that there were poor people in New Orleans. They're used to seeing the city as Party Central, and they have gauzy notions of the French Quarter, the Garden District, Mint Juleps and spanish moss swaying in the breeze. In truth, that city has had it's own pathologies for years! My Aunt used to take her seven kids, and my sister and me to Mardi Gras every year back in the mid 60's to the early 70's. We knew even then that there were areas right on the edge of the French Quarter that you just did NOT wander into. That 'criminal element' has been there for years, and they preyed on everyone, poor people included. Those poor people decided long ago that the police didn't care what happened to them because even if they DID call with a complaint, nothing ever happened, then the thugs would come back and go after the complainers. After a while, those people just gave up. That's where the attitudes of the looters of non-essential things was born. Doesn't make their actions right, but it does explain why they felt free to do what they did.
Hair has seen these people in her work. I grew up with them, white and black, and there is a mind-set that folks who were given a different set of values have a hard time understanding, unless they've lived with or near it. It would never occur to us to accept grinding poverty as something we can never overcome, but many of the people we saw in New Orleans have done so because they've never known anything else. They've never had the opportunity to make something of themselves, or they haven't been in the position to take advantage of any opportunity that might have presented itself. They just didn't recognize it, or their attitudes had steeled them against it.
We, who do not live in that mind-set, see education as a way to get out of that lifestyle. Unfortunately, the public school system has failed the poor in large urban areas, and even if the kids DO bother to graduate, many are ill equipped to go on to higher education. Most just drop out because they don't see the need for further education. Again, their mind-set does not see education as a benefit, and it is frustrating because though they WANT the finer things in life, many don't see the connection between education and actually GETTING those things.
I see in this tragedy, a real opportunity for many of New Orleans' poor families. While they were in the city, they were mired in that mind-set and the poverty it produced. They didn't have opportunities, so they couldn't move out of the projects, or they were stuck in such low end jobs that they kept falling back further into the hole. The political climate didn't help, either. Now, for the first time in their lives they are free of that bondage, and are being offered a way out. Many will take it, and they and their families will never look back. This would be the silver lining to the cloud. Some will squander it because they either can't or won't change their attitudes. We can only continue to offer help in the hopes that one day, they'll change that attitude.