Katrina No Respecter of Persons
The race card, as expected, has been played as it is in every event in this nation's history. It really doesn't matter what the circumstances, it will only be a matter of time. Sometimes it is a reality that racism has indeed occurred. 
In others, however, as in the case of Katrina, I believe they have been misplayed.
The number is clearly staggering regarding how many people are still stranded in New Orleans and, yes, the majority of the faces we see on the news are black. However, for anyone who has ever spent any time in New Orleans before the storm, that is always the case. Inner city New Orleans is predominately black. That being the case, is it any wonder why we would not see more black people stranded in the city? If a city is populated primarily by a certain race, is it racial when that population is then stranded in a particular area? Seems to me it is like saying that because a large population of the gulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama was white, that it is racist that those victims were predominately Caucasian. Yet we forget these facts when storm is over and the cameras are rolling and we begin to make our generalized observations.
The fact is, Katrina was no respecter of persons. It killed many people of all races, destroyed the property of all races, and left a large number of all races stranded and homeless. This is not a racial storm, nor do I believe the efforts to rescue people to have been racially guided. Frankly, I believe that to be an absurd statement.
This doesn't mean that mistakes might not have been made. For instance, it seems to me that better considerations should have been made to evacuate the large number of people who are dependent on public transportation in their daily lives. Why would they now, all of a sudden, have the means to evacuate on their own? Yet again, even this does not seem racially motivated. Though, admittedly, it may be slanted disproportionately in one direction (again, according to the pre-storm population), there were people of all races that were dependent on public transportation who needed a way of escape.
I don't know how the magnitude of such a task could have been accomplished in reality, especially when the results of the storm were clearly unknown by everyone involved. Was their time to evacuate that many people before the storm hit? Was there the will of the people to be evacuated? After all, since we didn't know then what we know now about the ferocity of the storm, many people (in all of the areas hit) had no plans to leave and wouldn't have agreed to do so because they had ridden them out before (In fact, my own parents probably wouldn't have left their home had they not had my son with them regardless of how much begging we had done). It sure seemed like a good plan to me to have people ride out the storm in the Super Dome like they've done so many times before. Yet, again, we forget these things after the fact when everything looks so terrible and so many cannot get out.
The point here is that it is easy to point fingers and place blame. It is easy to find our favorite scapegoats. It is easy to play "Monday-morning quarterback." Yet usually when we do so, we are doing it on our own terms, based upon our own ideology and often forgetting the facts, the mindset, and the circumstances that were in play before the disaster actually took place. This is a not a white tragedy or a black tragedy, it is a human tragedy and we must unite together to do what we can to make it better. So, please...put away the cards. This is no time to play.
In others, however, as in the case of Katrina, I believe they have been misplayed. The number is clearly staggering regarding how many people are still stranded in New Orleans and, yes, the majority of the faces we see on the news are black. However, for anyone who has ever spent any time in New Orleans before the storm, that is always the case. Inner city New Orleans is predominately black. That being the case, is it any wonder why we would not see more black people stranded in the city? If a city is populated primarily by a certain race, is it racial when that population is then stranded in a particular area? Seems to me it is like saying that because a large population of the gulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama was white, that it is racist that those victims were predominately Caucasian. Yet we forget these facts when storm is over and the cameras are rolling and we begin to make our generalized observations.
The fact is, Katrina was no respecter of persons. It killed many people of all races, destroyed the property of all races, and left a large number of all races stranded and homeless. This is not a racial storm, nor do I believe the efforts to rescue people to have been racially guided. Frankly, I believe that to be an absurd statement. This doesn't mean that mistakes might not have been made. For instance, it seems to me that better considerations should have been made to evacuate the large number of people who are dependent on public transportation in their daily lives. Why would they now, all of a sudden, have the means to evacuate on their own? Yet again, even this does not seem racially motivated. Though, admittedly, it may be slanted disproportionately in one direction (again, according to the pre-storm population), there were people of all races that were dependent on public transportation who needed a way of escape.
I don't know how the magnitude of such a task could have been accomplished in reality, especially when the results of the storm were clearly unknown by everyone involved. Was their time to evacuate that many people before the storm hit? Was there the will of the people to be evacuated? After all, since we didn't know then what we know now about the ferocity of the storm, many people (in all of the areas hit) had no plans to leave and wouldn't have agreed to do so because they had ridden them out before (In fact, my own parents probably wouldn't have left their home had they not had my son with them regardless of how much begging we had done). It sure seemed like a good plan to me to have people ride out the storm in the Super Dome like they've done so many times before. Yet, again, we forget these things after the fact when everything looks so terrible and so many cannot get out.
The point here is that it is easy to point fingers and place blame. It is easy to find our favorite scapegoats. It is easy to play "Monday-morning quarterback." Yet usually when we do so, we are doing it on our own terms, based upon our own ideology and often forgetting the facts, the mindset, and the circumstances that were in play before the disaster actually took place. This is a not a white tragedy or a black tragedy, it is a human tragedy and we must unite together to do what we can to make it better. So, please...put away the cards. This is no time to play.Labels: David C. Price
posted by DAVID C. PRICE at 9/03/2005 10:00:00 AM
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home