In Galveston, Texas, Frances Alvarez waits to board a bus to escape Hurricane Rita. New Orleans was less prepared for Katrina.
Posted on 09/23/2005 7:58:47 AM PDT by SmithL
Washington -- Searing images of destitute African Americans huddled on rooftops, freeway overpasses, and the floors of the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center will remain vivid, for many Americans, long after the Gulf Coast is rebuilt.
Hurricane Katrina's winds ripped away barriers that kept one city's poor out of sight and, for most people, out of mind. As the world watched, the deadly storm thrust the nation's enormous economic disparities into plain view.
President Bush touched on the issue in his address to the nation last week and again at a prayer service at the National Cathedral. First lady Laura Bush talked about it in an interview this week. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have spoken forcefully about it on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Much as pictures of hoses and German shepherds turned on protesters shamed the nation into confronting racial prejudice in the 1960s, the image of impoverished hurricane victims waiting in vain for government help is forcing a national conversation on race and urban poverty.
"This is an important moment,'' said William Julius Wilson, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who has written extensively on race and poverty.
Were it not for the natural disaster, "the tendency would be to question why 'those people' don't get their act together. The tendency would be to focus on individual shortcomings,'' Wilson said. "Katrina was an outside force everyone understands. There was great sympathy for the victims. (Americans) don't usually have the same feelings of sympathy or empathy if you just focus on the conditions of poverty in urban areas.''
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
What the f*ck do the media scum want? Bush to order all hurricanes to whites only cities. Rich white cities that is. The media are, and have been, stuck on stupid for far too long. Bush needs to order the water to stop breaching the levees in N.O. again. Why does he allow this to happen?
Race and poverty have been on the national stage for almost as long as I can remember. The poor residents of New Orleans were screwed by their local and State officials. Who supposedly are the people who represent them.
Weather is racist.
According to Joe Scarborough, hurricane victims in Mississippi are actually living in tents, donated by charities. And if they didn't have them, they'd have nothing!
It's sad that the city of New Orleans flooded, but at least those people were evacuated to more permanent shelters (before Rita came along, anyway). But it sounds like the people of Mississipi are left to fend for themselves. Way too much attention has been paid to the plight of the New Orleans people and virtually nothing to those of the other areas hit.
I know Trent Lott's been on TV talking about this, but it sounds like very little has been done to date!
It's time the feds start helping these people!!!
Here come's the reparations movement crawling out from underneath their rocks.
As Jesus might say, what good would it do for a Texan to "gain the world" yet be stuck on the path of a hurricane, waiting for a flight that never came due to lack of airport screeners. The weather, therefore, is no respecter of persons or circumstances.
What? Is the media just waking up to the fact that the poor are always vulnerable? More vulnerable to inner-city violence. More vulnerable to poorer schools. More vulnerable to their children joining gangs or taking drugs.
If it's the government's job to wipe out most of the world's threats by providing millions of safety nets, then why not just socialize this country 100%. The government isn't designed to be compassionate, people are. Churches are to be that source.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I personally don't see what the problems are....
Bush ordered hurricanes to do damage to the U.S.
He wanted everyone to know just how its done, so the libs would have something to whine about...and whine they are...
Look at Rita...right into his own State...he ordered it, and look how orderly and fast they moved...granted they all got jammed up on the freeway, but thats not the point, he did what he wanted....and remember:
"IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!!!!"
I don't have any memories of "destitute African Americans huddled on rooftops" or any of that media blarney. I remember a lot of Americans who were driven from their homes by a hurricane of immense size taking refuge where ever they could.And somehow I don't remember the Congressional Black Carcass doing anything but flapping their jaws. The idea of an Ivy League professor (who has no doubt suffered the wrongs of poverty extensively) spouting off about a subject of which I would bet he has no first hand knowledge at all is just another example of the rampant pomposity that plagues the colleges and universities of this country.
I do, however, find myself wondering what the news pukes would be doing if it weren't for the two hurricanes.
When will we get used to the idea that Mother Nature really doesn't give a particle of a damn who is in the way when she puts on one of these periodic shows. All who are in the path of a storm, of whatever type, are profoundly effected by it and we are more obligated to help the victims than to pontificate over the proximate causes of the damage. And, of course, assess responsibility.
WE all have a responsibility to show our humanity by helping in whatever way we can. We need to shut up and get about it. Either lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.
I agree with this article, hopefully we will now cut benefits to the able bodied who obviously don't appreciate them and have been plunged into a cycle of dependency. And just maybe we'll confront the reality that racism doesn't only infect people with white skin.
Yeah, see Howard Kurtz' recent article on how when the media covered New Orleans over the previous decade, the poor was ignored, getting only a few mentions. The MSM image of NOLA as mardi gras party central has itself been fractured.
And now we have the MSM, which ignored the poor, sitting in judgment of the Bush administration on the same subject?
What's worse is that the media volume is only turned up halfway in its Bush criticism compared to what it would be if Bush was up for another re-election in 2008.
I guess the spiritually poor you'll always have with you.
The collectivist, totalitarian left must ensure that it IS NOT SUCCESSFUL or they will lose their power and control over those they claim to support. We all know they are the real oppressors of the dysfunctional down there in N.O.
What's sad is that this particular "front" is part of a much larger one which is designed to be the end of this nation. It can't even be termed "conspiracy" because it is being done out in the open, right in our faces.
http://www.semperliber.org/SLSAEngineeredDestruction.htm
Whatever happened to John F Kennedy's challenge to the nation:
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"?
Excellent point. Self-reliance with enough reserve to help the person standing next to you. Local control. Local government.
"I'm surprised the article didn't mention that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney called up Halliburton and Wal-Mart and had them blow up only the levees that would flood the black and poor sections of New Orleans."
Idiot! We're not supposed to let that out!
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