Progressive Democrat Issue 46: THOUGHTS

The aftereffects of Katrina are still echoing across our nation. One issue I brought up in a past issue perhaps needs to be addressed more directly: the issue of race. I heard a story from someone who went down to the hurricane-hit area to help with animal rescue. She was told that some people who were unable to evacuate were turned back when they tried to flee. This was after the hurricane, as the floodwaters were rising. White cops were turning back poor blacks for fear of crime and looting. This happened in America, a culture that talks about Democracy a lot, but it is also the nation where a former cabinet member and current radio show host, Bill Bennett, publicly declared that, "if you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." This is covered in more detail in John Conyers' recent statements.

Race is still an issue in the US and, if anything, it is becoming more of an issue. I was raised with the idea that you judge someone for who they are not what race they are. The rise of racial tensions and hatreds in the US surprises me. Yes, I am naïve that way. I don’t understand why anyone would be so intellectually sloppy that they will lump anyone who looks a certain way or worships a certain religion or comes from a certain part of the world into one category and judge all such people based on a stereotype. To me racism is nothing but stupidity. But, like Bush’s style of running the country, it is stupidity that kills.

I want to quote from Chris Owens’ newsletter:

Our federal government and other public policy players have failed us. The numerous and painfully detailed examples of how the destruction of New Orleans could have been avoided, for example, clearly illustrate this painful truth. Even now, however, the full truth of the Gulf Coast horrors are not being revealed to the nation. (Busloads of African Americans discriminated against when seeking shelter, for example.)

What a few good women demanded after 9/11, resulting in a historic examination of our homeland security failures, we must demand today. Senator Clinton has introduced a bill towards this end. And that is only one small step.

There is rage at hand and it must be understood. I have yet to talk with an African American who is not burning with anger. The decisions leading to the Gulf coast tragedies are a collection of "rational" policy choices -- a sequence of cost/benefit analyses that condemned many to death and many more to physical and psychological injury. Time and time again, a public sector resource investment decision regarding New Orleans that cost a certain amount of dollars on Day One was deferred for months, years or permanently, leading to far greater costs today, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future.

Remember, it was a known fact that a Category 4 or 5 hurricane would create flooding problems, including the compromising of the levees and pumps, and it was an accepted projection that more than 100,000 people would not evacuate New Orleans if told to do so.

In general, this is the same approach and process that allows the siting of less desirable social service facilities and environmentally dangerous facilities in neighborhoods where land is "most affordable" -- and where the inhabitants are usually people of color and always poor. This is the same process that triages municipal services using real estate values or other indices that penalize and sustain "blighted" neighborhoods.

The struggles are parallel: Accepting risk levels for poor people or people of color that would not be acceptable for people of greater economic means or political clout is the driving force behind institutional racism. The prophetic warnings of the Kerner Commission, created after the riots of the 1960s, have been ignored. We have continued to become two nations, not one, divided by race and class. The evidence has been there; we have simply refused to look at it.

Katrina has brought the impact of institutional racism into everyone's living room. Rapper Konye West's impolitic statement that "George Bush hates Black people", made during the NBC benefit telethon while standing opposite an obviously pained Mike Myers, reflected the true feelings of too many Americans. Make a note of this. West said what millions are thinking and will continue thinking (though Bush is not the only one faulted by the people and Bush is representative of issues greater than himself.) It must be understood and accepted, because it cannot be dismissed.
The Bush family celebrates the top-down approach that our society takes to most issues. This is dangerous to all of us. Per a report from National Public Radio, former First Lady Barbara Bush lightheartedly concluded a review of the situation facing American refugees in Houston's Astrodome with the following: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them." 'Nuff said.

There is no defense to be offered for the criminals in New Orleans who chose to attack people during this crisis. But such violence had to have been expected at some level and included within that master plan that failed. For those young Black men in New Orleans, marginalized for years when times were "good", there was even less reason to care about other people's feelings, rights or safety when the rules have evaporated and chaos reigns. Such a scenario will repeat itself if comparable events happen to other areas with marginalized populations.

And, of course, there is the looting itself. The first response of lawmakers and the media to the looting -- before violent behavior had become known -- was ridiculous. The "tsk, tsk" attitude did not acknowledge the sudden loss of everything for thousands of people -- each of whose concern or panic was amplified by the desperate environment surrounding him or her. We saw women -- Black women -- running from stores with diapers, Huggies and Pampers, as well as liquids. We saw children carrying bundles of clothes. No one was carrying a television set.

(One might ask why a State of Emergency isn't accompanied by an automatic appropriation of retail inventory within a designated zone by an appropriate authority for immediate distribution to people. After all, businesses are compensated by their insurance carriers for property losses and, frankly, those carriers could then be reimbursed by the federal government at a later point in time. This would reduce stress for victims and law enforcement alike.)

I remember the incredible sadness I felt after 9/11. I could not believe people could hate so much as to do what I had witnessed live here in New York and I could not imagine how we would climb such a mountain as this hate. I was angry, yes, but my primary emotion was sadness. Watching the coverage of Katrina, however, I was furious -- anger laced with disappointment -- because my country had the power to avoid much of the misery and death and we had failed to do so.

More than 40 years ago, Malcolm X had tried to highlight the racial and economic disparities in America before the United Nations. Katrina did that in a manner he could not have imagined. And, worse, for Americans at the bottom of our pecking order, the situation has not changed much since 1965.

We have been given a warning. We must heed the call and take action.

I quote Chris Owens because I couldn’t have said it any better. How long will it be until America starts taking Democracy seriously?