http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/america-has-failed-its-blacks/2006/09/03/1157222002202.htmlGeorge Bush was reaffirming his commitment to the rebuilding of New Orleans while a few kilometres away, a small black boy pleaded for help. He was perhaps 10 or 11 years old and he was speaking in the rebuilt Convention Centre where a year ago 20,000 people, mostly poor and black, were left to their own devices for four days, without food or water. This boy was one of the speakers at an interfaith service to mark the anniversary of the flooding of New Orleans and his prayer was a simple and poignant one: God, get the politicians to help make us safe by giving our young men hope so they don't continue to kill each other.
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There was virtually no reporting of the boy's plea in any of the major newspapers or by the television news services, despite the fact that the anniversary of hurricane Katrina and Bush's visit to the wrecked Gulf Coast and, more specifically, to the still devastated city of New Orleans, was extensively covered.
This seemed strange, because the boy's short speech and prayer, offered through tears, was moving. Perhaps he was ignored because he raised a problem that most Americans would prefer not to confront: that the richest country in the history of mankind has almost 40 million people living in poverty and that about a third of those are black.
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/09/03/spooner_0409_narrowweb__300x375,2.jpg
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