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Viewpoint
New
Orleans crisis shames US
By Matt Wells
BBC News, Los Angeles
At the end of an unforgettable week, one
broadcaster on Friday bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning
shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling.
The only difference between the chaos of New
Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that
a foreign dictator would have responded better.
It has been a profoundly shocking experience
for many across this vast country who, for the large part,
believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the
American Dream.
The party in power in Washington is always
happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward
together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and
better America.
That is what presidential campaigning is all
about.
But what the devastating consequences of
Katrina have shown – along with the response to it – is that
for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched
country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi,
has been neglected and ignored.
Borrowed time
The fitting metaphors relating to the New
Orleans debacle are almost too numerous to mention.
First there was an extraordinary complacency,
mixed together with what seemed like over-reaction, before the
storm.
A genuinely heroic mayor orders a total
evacuation of the city the day before Katrina arrives, knowing
that for decades now, New Orleans has been living on borrowed
time. The National Guard and federal emergency
personnel stay tucked up at home.
The havoc of Katrina had been predicted
countless times on a local and federal level - even to the point
where it was acknowledged that tens of thousands of the poorest
residents would not be able to leave the city in advance.
No official plan was ever put in place for
them.
Abandoned to the elements
The famous levees that were breached could
have been strengthened and raised at what now seems like a
trifling cost of a few million dollars. The Bush administration, together with
Congress, cut the budgets for flood protection and army
engineers, while local politicians failed to generate any
enthusiasm for local tax increases.
Too often in the so-called "New South", they still look
positively 19th Century.
New Orleans partied-on just hoping for the
best, abandoned by anyone in national authority who could have
put the money into really protecting the city.
Meanwhile, the poorest were similarly
abandoned, as the horrifying images and stories from the
Superdome and Convention Center prove.
The truth was simple and apparent to all. If
journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live
across America, where were the officers and troops?
The neglect that meant it took five days to
get water, food, and medical care to thousands of mainly orderly
African-American citizens desperately sheltering in huge
downtown buildings of their native city, has been going on
historically, for as long as the inadequate levees have been
there.
Divided city
I should make a confession at this point: I
have been to New Orleans on assignment three times in as many
years, and I was smitten by the Big Easy, with its unique charms
and temperament.
But behind the elegant intoxicants of the
French Quarter, it was clearly a city grotesquely divided on
several levels. It has twice the national average poverty rate.
The government approach to such deprivation
looked more like thoughtless containment than anything else.
The nightly shootings and drugs-related
homicides of recent years pointed to a small but vicious culture
of largely black-on-black crime that everyone knew existed, but
no-one seemed to have any real answers for.
Again, no-one wanted to pick up the bill or
deal with the realities of race relations in the 21st Century.
"Shoot the looters" is good rhetoric, but no lasting
solution.
Uneasy paradox
It is astonishing to me that so many
Americans seem shocked by the existence of such concentrated
poverty and social neglect in their own country.
In the workout room of the condo where I am
currently staying in the affluent LA neighbourhood of Santa
Monica, an executive and his personal trainer ignored the
anguished television reports blaring above their heads on Friday
evening.
Either they did not care, or it was
somehow too painful to discuss.
When President Bush told "Good Morning
America" on Thursday morning that nobody could have
"anticipated" the breach of the New Orleans levees, it
pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole
political class.
The uneasy paradox which so many live with in
this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals,
out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they
can get away with, while at the same time believing that America
is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this
week.
Will there be real investment, or just more
buck-passing between federal agencies and states?
The country has to choose whether it wants to
rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense
spared for the future - or once again brush off that
responsibility, and blame the other guy.
Do you agree or disagree
It disgusts me to think that my 'brother and
sisters' in New Orleans have been ignored and discarded by the
US government like so much trash that no line the streets of
this once beautiful city. I am embarrassed it took so long to
get help to people only eight hours away.—Lara Tosh, Nashville, Tennessee
This article is so wrong-headed, it is hard
to even begin to criticize it in a short space, other than to
say it is written by an anti-Bush foreigner who has little
understanding of America. Bush was right: no-one could have
predicted when this devastating storm would hit. I don't blame
anyone for the tragedies of nature.—David Augustine, Mendham, NJ
I completely agree with the article. What has
been going through my mind this past week is that the crisis did
seem political, racial, and I am disgusted. It's unconscionable
that after an entire coastline was just destroyed, while New
Orleans began to drown, the President was making fundraising
speeches in California on Tuesday. As president, elected to
serve the people of this country, why didn't he stop everything
and call out the help those people needed immediately? Lori Thoma, Reno, Nevada
My sympathy to fellow Americans sufferings
from this natural disaster. The most advanced nation on earth
and unable to response soon. A political disaster too. Mr Bush:
time to wake up and cut red tape. More action and less talk.—D Sharma, Antwerp, Belgium
Shame on anyone that makes this tragedy
political, socio-economic or racial. The US Government, both
Federal and local; and individuals, failed both before and after
the storm to react in a timely organised manner. We need to fix
it and we need to help the survivors, but we are not going to
build a wall around coastal US to prevent a category five storm
surge from causing damage. And in the land of opportunity and
personal responsibility the individual is ultimately
accountable. Robert Buckley, Decatur, USA
I am ashamed to be an American. This disaster
did not have to happen. Years of environmental damage to the
gulf coast and building a city below sea level surrounded by
water was a disaster waiting to happen. Now the clean up will
cost untold amounts of money and the toxic stew of chemicals
will pollute the gulf even more destroying precious fishing
areas which were in trouble to begin with. The pictures tell the
story bad planning, lack of vision and the fact that racism is
still alive and doing well in America.—Howard Goldsmith, Staten Island, New York, USA
I agree the article, but what most people
from other countries don't realise about America is that for all
the great things we do we do some really horrendous ones too.
Most Americans don't realize that we have a lower class, despite
it being so blatantly obvious. The tragedy of this Gulf State
disaster is that it is has exposed just how poor those states
are and how much they've needed help for decades.—Riley Gelwicks, Gainesville (Florida), USA
As a proud southern American your article is
so far from the truth I don't even now where to begin. What I
read is a liberal, European, elitist view of this absolute
tragedy. Americans will help each other regardless of colour or
social level. As for aid from other nations, I for one say leave
it. We can and will rebuild the ravaged areas ourselves.—Tracie Dixon, Sand Springs, Oklahoma
The people of New Orleans deserve much better
- but the responsibility begins with who they choose as their
local representatives. Representatives that can get things done
- not just blame others for a lack of progress. Local emergency
planning is the responsibility of local authorities. Their job
does not end with making sure the bars are open for the
tourists.—Kendall Walsh, Port Washington, NY
I agree with all the comments made in the
above article. I wonder what the response would have been if a
similar problem had happened in "Miami Beach" America
should be ashamed.—Enid Jewell, Ontario.Canada
I think one should not only blame G W Bush
for having neglected so dramatically some States of the South,
but also all former Presidents of the US. But as was said many
years ago by a famous American economist: it's hard to try to
produce at the same time guns and butter.—Robert Deossart, Wervicq Sud, France
I fully agree with this article. For the self
proclaimed "most advanced nation on earth" to build a
city below sea level, in an area subject to hurricane activity,
and not make absolutely certain that the levees would not fail
is massively irresponsible.—Roger Gamwell, Dubai, UAE
I think now
America and Americans in general will learn to appreciate the
problems of the 'developing world' they so easily dismiss
disparagingly. Even so-called weak nations like Sri Lanka and
India manage to routinely respond to natural calamities of
similar and greater intensity. It is time America shook off its
complacency and check how strong are its credentials as a free,
equitable and prosperous country.—Haripriya, Delhi, India
Story
from BBC NEWS: posted 4 September 2005
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
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considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
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shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
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the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a sharecropper's
wife, left Mississippi for Milwaukee in
1937, after her cousin was falsely accused
of stealing a white man's turkeys and was
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pervade this book, hold the reader in its
grasp, and resonate long after the reading
is done. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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