Nah...there are no race issues involved in what's happening in New Orleans

[WilliamPitt]

None whatsoever.



Hm. Wait a minute. There's something...similar...about the people in all these pictures who could not get out of the storm's way. Can't quite put my finger on it...

From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: September 2, 2005

The scenes of floating corpses, scavengers fighting for food and desperate throngs seeking any way out of New Orleans have been tragic enough. But for many African-American leaders, there is a growing outrage that many of those still stuck at the center of this tragedy were people who for generations had been pushed to the margins of society.

The victims, they note, were largely black and poor, those who toiled in the background of the tourist havens, living in tumbledown neighborhoods that were long known to be vulnerable to disaster if the levees failed. Without so much as a car or bus fare to escape ahead of time, they found themselves left behind by a failure to plan for their rescue should the dreaded day ever arrive.

"If you know that terror is approaching in terms of hurricanes, and you've already seen the damage they've done in Florida and elsewhere, what in God's name were you thinking?" said the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "I think a lot of it has to do with race and class. The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."

In the days since neighborhoods and towns along the Gulf Coast were wiped out by the winds and water, there has been a growing sense that race and class are the unspoken markers of who got out and who got stuck. Just as in developing countries where the failures of rural development policies become glaringly clear at times of natural disasters like floods or drought, many national leaders said, some of the United States' poorest cities have been left vulnerable by federal policies.

"No one would have checked on a lot of the black people in these parishes while the sun shined," said Mayor Milton D. Tutwiler of Winstonville, Miss. "So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/national/nationalspecial/02discrim.html?hp&ex=1125720000&en=9ce372bd33f25d06&ei=5094&partner=homepage



Still can't put my finger on it...







Jeez...you'd think this guy here on the right could have just left the city, right? He must have wanted to stay so he could loot:



Hm.

[H2O Man]

1. None .....

except the president racing to the rescue.

[wellstone dem]

2. 23 years ago

a Legal Aid attorney from NOLA asked me what was the cause of poverty in my community (very white, little diversity at the time) I replied, abuse, lack of education, lack of education, disability. He told me he needed only one word, "racism". Little has changed.

[rosesaylavee]

3. Not quite sure what those in power despise more about the victims...

that they are poor or the color of their skin is not the same as theirs.

I have to think that they let this happen. There really is no other explanation.

It makes me so very sad and so very tired. Is this how far we have come since the cultural revolution of the 60s?

[EFerrari]

4. No racism. Just a little breakdown in "law and order".

:puke:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. They're poor. They're black. They have bush** for their pResident..

The three fatal strikes against them.

[LostinVA]

6. They are whites in the crowds

And what was breaking my heart yesterday was watching everyone help one another: a "gangsta rap" young black man helping an elderly white lady in a wheelchair, an old white woman holding a black child while the mother rested, a white woman helping a very pregnant black women, black men handing out what little food and drink they found to everyone, regardless of anything.

There is little apparent racism among those trying to survive... racism is created, not inate.... Goddess bless them...

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Racism is a systemic condition of a society

Not the private property of this or thast person. People aren't "racists." Rather, racism works through people.

And if you don't see the systemic racism that would allow this to happen (and yes, of course, intertwined with class as well), I can't really help you.

[Mairead]

hiccup deleted

[Mairead]

10. I think you might have misread LIV's point

Which, as I read it, was that there's little or no racism among people caught together. They ignore inconsequentials and self-organise for the benefit of all: anarchism in action.

[KittyWampus]

15. did you even read the poster's actual words? they, in effect, pointed out

that people guided by their higher selves tend to help others regardless of race.

It's a valid point I'm glad to hear.

[Jersey Devil]

14. Imagine no possessions,

I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

There was no racism at the convention center, only people sharing their concerns for one another as human beings. It is perhaps the only good thing that I can say that I saw all day yesterday.

[YapiYapo]

7. Obvious Racism

[WilliamPitt]

9. "finding"

[LynneSin]

13. I send that picture to my friends and btw welcome to DU

:hi:

[KittyWampus]

16. how do you know that woman is 'white'? maybe there is some even more

insidious racism going on here.

[Tsiyu]

11. Add to the color of their skin the party of their vote

77% voted for Kerry. Another strike against them.

**, Rove, Rumsfield, and the entire gang of thugs in the White House don't even try to hide their racism. And they've never hidden their loathing for non-Repukes either.

[DainBramaged]

12. And the Wingnuts have nothing to say, no response from

the White House, no press releases streaming from the desk of Karl Rove. Complete silence while the "voters" they so desperately wanted in 2006 evaporate in front of them.


2006 is the watershed. Those who stay home and do not vote these monsters out of office and handcuff the cabal in the White House after whitnessing the destruction of our cities and the death of our culture belong in hell with them.