I interviewed a black, 27-year-old, proud single mother for a sales job in Biloxi on Friday. She's college educated, conservative, and she showed a history of success in her previous two positions. She went from making $50K/year before Katrina, to $20K/year after Katrina swept her house off the slab and destroyed her former employer's company.
She moved out of her FEMA trailer two weeks ago. She's been working whatever jobs she could find while her house was rebuilt. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate being called a bum. She could have taken the insurance money and ran to another city like so many others, but she wanted to stay and rebuild.
When she told that story, she didn't complain. She didn't ask for sympathy. She was simply explaining the facts of life for a lot of people living on the Gulf Coast.
I've known bums. I used to have one sleep in the entry way to my business. Bums give up on life. She's not a bum. Just because you don't see them on the nightly news, doesn't mean honest, hard-working people on the Gulf Coast aren't still struggling from Katrina, Rita, and Ivan.