You should be ENRAGED
I'm not going to add to the mountain of platitudes and "our hearts are with them" sayings regarding what happened in New Orleans. Rather, I am completely livid, totally enraged, and fully appalled by the (lack of) response to what happened in the aftermath to those who were left behind. I am fully convinced that if you are poor--and especially black and poor--you are just completely *FUCKED* in this country. Do you hear me? FUCKED. I refuse to mince words. Everyone should be outraged. We spend billions upon billions of dollars on overseas wars while there are people who are too poor to have viable alternatives to evacuating a city in the path of a hurricane.
I'm ashamed that this country has its priorities in the wrong place. What we're seeing today is the result of a total systemic shutdown--poor people being "left behind" to fend for themselves, public hospitals (Charity Hospital) not being evacuated of its dying people as the private hospital across the street gets evacuated (really, isn't it apparent that it's about money?), and image upon image of poor and old black and white folks being stranded and left to fend for themselves with disorganized and anarchic scenes.
The National Black Caucus is right to be mad. The mayor of New Orleans, with his well-publicized rant against the lack of help, are completely correct in airing their frustrations. People everywhere should be ashamed and appalled. Racism and the class divide between the rich and poor has played a huge part in the inequities of this country, and what I'm hoping now is that it slaps every single person incredibly hard across the face who reads the stories and sees the images on TV and newspapers.
Tonight the music superstar Kanye West proclaimed on TV "George Bush does not care about black people". On live TV. And of course the network had to air a disclaimer afterwards saying his comments don't reflect the comments of the network. Like I said earlier, fuck platitudes.
4 Comments:
thank you stephanie- you're totally right.
i've written my angry letter to the white house, i've donated and shouted and vented, but what else can we do?
Hey Valerie,
yes, it's sort of a quandary, isn't it? I mean, there are these rants we can have among our peers and our friends, and in the end, what really happens? I'm open to more suggestions and ideas too, because it seems like there's no where to start--it's such a big thing. BUT! I can say that trying to get others to look at larger systemic issues and deflect the conversations that may come up along the lines of "how awful those black people are acting out there". Like, I went to a craigslist bulletin board and there's some really misguided conversations about the looting issue, and it's amazing the things that get said about ordinary people in awful circumstances.
At first I felt sort of weird posting such a rant on this blog (it *is* after all a craft/fashion/diy-oriented site) but then again, it's very hard to divorce politics from my everyday interests anymore!
In terms of "what can we do?"...I'm open. Let's all talk about it as much as we can, shall we?
I haven't posted about this terrible situation on my blog because I am not sure I would be eloquent enough and I am also an outsider - neither living in the US or American. I agree with everything you said in your post, Stephanie - the situation, pictures, reality of what is happening is completely shocking. With regards to the question 'what can we do?', I am of the 'education is empowerment' school. This is of course a long-term issue (massive and complicated) that will not be solved overnight. Every human being has a right to an education and health care, and the only way to guarantee these things is to have a government that prioritizes these things over defense spending (war mongering) and big business. Voters have the power to change the situation. My hope is that people respond to this tragedy by focusing on the big picture (solving systemic issues) rather than looking at blaming others and quick fixes.
My two cents worth.
ps the power and love of crafters is amazing - go crafters!
Kat, if anything, your perspective as an "outsider" is so welcome! Sometimes I feel Americans are too close to their own situations to adequately analyze or keep perspective on certain issues, especially if they are ones that have been with us for a long time (poverty, inequality, racism, etc.). You become numb to it, start even thinking in the back of your head that it's just the way things are, horridly.
You've hit the nail on the head: it's trying to solve issues on both the immediate as well as the larger "systemic" levels that needs to be addressed...I was hearing radio commentary today that similar situations back in the 1920s (floods in the South) spurred on the post-Depression New Deal and other reforms and safety nets for the poor. Let's really hope and push for more social spending, less tax cuts for the wealthy (lord!) and more attempts to empower folks to not even have to need to use the support system: better education, living wage laws, labor organization, universal health care, and affordable housing (just to name a few).
While I know that time needs to be spent on the immediate needs of the displaced, I'm so worried that it will end just there...
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