No Catapult of Lies can hide this massive racial injustice in NOLA

omega minimo

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Thu Sep-01-05 10:01 PM
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No Catapult of Lies can hide this massive racial injustice in NOLA

The abandoned, lost, dead and dying in New Orleans; those escaping on foot over the overpasses, expiring while waiting for buses that never come, or floating on scraps of wood in the water; all these images we see on the news-- WHY ARE (ESSENTIALLY) ALL THE FACES BLACK?

A woman from the Astrodome decscribed being treated like criminals, being given food “with a gun on the side” and ordered by armed guards to go to the bathroom “one at a time.” Would the crowds in the Dome have been treated any differently if they were not poor and black?

This is a test on us, folks. This is a test of our willingness to suspend our sense of disbelief (yet again) and to suspend our own humanity as we witness the blatant, arrogant and horrifying abandonment of hurricane victims who just happen to be predominantly African American. If they weren’t impoverished before, they are now.

THIS IS NOT OKAY AND WE CANNOT LET THE POWERS THAT BE THINK THAT WE THINK IT IS.

We wonder as we watch these scenes WHAT DIFFERENCE IN GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE RESPONSE WOULD THERE BE IF THESE FACES WERE WHITE?

We need to realize that this is a test of OUR REACTION to how they will treat other Americans when the time comes. It could be us. How will we feel when we are abandoned, disenfranchised, disappeared by our government?

:patriot:

If people want to describe this as “more classist than racist” fine. We all know it is no coincidence that this crowd of poor people stuck in New Orleans in the hurricane happen to be black.

:evilfrown:

If people want to argue that we are not seeing what we are seeing with our own eyes and this is NOT racism/classicism, please read:

http://www.konformist.com/2001/mickeyz-05.htm
Politics and Brain Damage in the New Word Order

"One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace, one nevertheless tells the truth." --Nietzche

:kick:

Here is a link to a post started by msgadget on “The storm as 'civic examination'”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=258x2343

“The storm as 'civic examination'

Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed.”

:bounce:

NEWSMAKER: FEMA'S MIKE BROWN

Defending the government's efforts
JIM LEHRER: Mr. Brown, I'm sure you're aware that there have been enormous complaints today from the people affected, up to the officials in New Orleans, the disaster director of New Orleans in fact called the federal effort that you are in charge of a national disgrace because it's moving so slowly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How do you respond to that?

MIKE BROWN: What we cannot do, and what we did not do immediately after the storm passed and as the levees were breaking, was to be able to bring in rescue workers and urban search-and-rescue teams and the medical teams because they themselves would have then become disaster victims. So we had to come in very carefully and very methodically. And it frustrated me, too because I would rather just have charged in there and done everything we could have.

But now we're at the stage where we we're getting the water supplies in there, we're getting the meals ready to eat. The Coast Guard, the U.S. Army, everybody is doing everything to now extract those people who could not or did not get out, to get the supplies on them and to continue this massive relief effort just as frantically as we can to get everything to them quickly.

<snip>

JIM LEHRER: "As fast as we can," what does that mean as we speak right now? Preceding you, we've had numerous people say they walked across the bridge and they got to the other end of the bridge and there was nobody there, nobody to help them. There were supposed to be buses. The buses didn't show up. It is one story after another. So what does "as soon as we can" mean at this stage of the game, Mr. Brown?

MIKE BROWN: Well, let me answer the question two ways: First, with regard to the evacuation of the Superdome and the convention center, we have had an ongoing supply food and water to there. They've had meals every day that they've been there. They had meals this morning.

(CATAPULT ALERT)
We have five trailers moving into the SUPERDOME this evening and to the convention center to provide both water and meals to those people, SO THEY’RE GETTING REGULAR AMOUNTS OF FOOD IN THE MORNING AND EVENING IN BOTH OF THOSE PLACES.

The second part of my answer, Jim, which, I think, again, the American people understand how fascinating and unusual this is -- IS THAT WE’RE SEEING PEOPLE THAT WE DIDN’T KNOW EXIST SUDDENLY ARE SHOWING UP ON BRIDGES OR SHOWING UP ON OVERPASSES or parts of the interstate that aren't inundated, and that now we're trying to get to them by Coast Guard helicopter to at least get them some immediate relief so we can start airlifting them out.

If there are groups of 40, some place where we can't get those helicopters in, so we have to move them out almost one at a time.”