Posted on 09/05/2005 1:41:59 PM PDT by grundle
NEW YORK — People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina's worst devastation were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car — factors that may help explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached.
"Let them know we're not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We have jobs. It's not our fault that we didn't have cars to leave," Shatonia Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans' convention center five days after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and 9.
Catina Miller, a 32-year-old grocery deli worker who lived in the Ninth Ward, a poverty-stricken New Orleans enclave created in the 1870s by immigrants who were too poor to find higher ground, said she certainly would have liked to have left the city before the hurricane hit.
—About 60 percent of the 700,000 people in the three dozen neighborhoods were minority. Nationwide, about 1 in 3 Americans is a racial minority.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Do have small children or an infant? Does anyone in your family have trouble walking?
I second that emotion, Dakotan.
Hey mom with all your rant about african sounding names, one wonders what your real motivation is? A little racist are we? By the way you might want to change your little home page or whatever. You incorrectly spell "believe" at least two or three times. Guess you are just barely above the educational level of those you denigrate.
Just because people make poor decision that lead to poverty does not mean that we should not help them.
When Jesus told PRIVATE individuals to help the poor, he did not say to help them 'only if they deserve it.'
Does God forgive everybody, or only those who deserve it?
(Talking PRIVATE assistance here.)
Are you a complete idiot or do you just play one for Free Republic? The city of Kenner where the airport is located is ten miles from downtown and while not under water it was heavily damaged. After these people made their ten mile trek on traffic clogged roads exactly where were they supposed to take shelter from the hurricane? In a field? Tie themselvs to a tree? Depend on the genorosity of someone like you to allow them to seek protection in your basement. Somehow I think not.
Many of those who didnt leave were elderly or in had health problems. Should they have organized stretcher brigades to come up to your standard of what someone else should have done?
Look at some of those pictures of the buses. There are hundreds of cars. The roof of the parking garage alone has more cars than the bus parking lot.
With all the NOLA refugees moving to Texas are the Mexican-Americans still the Majority-Minority?
I never ranted about "african sounding names".
It depends on how you count Hispanics. If you count them as white non-minorities, then you are correct. If you dont, then hispanics are something like 14% of the population, blacks a little less. Count in the other minorities and you rather easily hit 30% or more.
Thanks, Gid.
Seems to me that you agreed with the another posters comments.
"one wonders what your real motivation is?
And one wonders what your's is?? Besides insulting me.
Walking away from New Orleans with two babies plus a #5 hurricane at your back? What a good decision.
I suppose in your little world staying in New Orleans, which is 8 feet under sea level, with no car and with two children is a MUCH BETTER decision?? And I never said anything about "Shatonia" leaving before or during the storm. But certainly AFTER the storm.
THINK!!
By the way, 6 and 9 hardly a "baby" makes. By that time, children are capable of walking, y'know.
I remember a thread on FR a while back about the importance of naming your children with an eye to their futures. When I googled the subject I came up with this:
What’s in a name? Quite a lot for black students with exotic names who do not make the grade in school and are often overlooked by gifted programs, a new University of Florida study finds.
Da’Quan or Damarcus, for example, are more likely to score lower on reading and mathematics tests and are less likely to meet teacher expectations and be referred to gifted programs than their siblings with more common names such as Dwayne, said David Figlio, a UF economist who did the research.
“This study suggests that the names parents give their children play an important role in explaining why African-American families on average do worse because African-American families are more inclined than whites or Hispanics to give their children names that are associated with low socio-economic status,” Figlio said.
http://news.ufl.edu/2005/05/11/names/
OK - we agree. Now what? I read your comment, and I wonder ~why~ you felt it necessary to include the editorial in your title. Do you think it's profound?
Does it make you feel less guilty for not wanting to assist? Does it mean no one need help them because it's their own damn fault they need help?
As someone with a lot of experience in social services, someone who does believe in teaching and passing on good life-skills to the clients I've worked with, I'd say there isn't a liberal idealogue I've worked with who wouldn't agree that most of the chronically poor have made poor decisions that prolonged and made-worse their situations. The only difference is the liberal idealogue and the practical conservative know this, and yet believe there is still a need to help.
Barring a natural disaster that floods and condemns your entire city, the last thing the urban poor need is a car. Car loan payments, parking, and insurance premiums eat up needed monthly cash flow (and the lack of insurance is a worse choice), and repairs can be simply unaffordable. Better advice to the poor in an urban environment with good transit, is to not take on the significant cost of a car until they can truly afford it.
So there may have been other bad decisions made that kept many of these people poor. But for a city dweller to not own a vehicle isn't ~normally~ one of them. ~Normally~ meaning times when your city isn't evacuated, of course.
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