We are all missing the bigger problem,

[Heewack]

We have talked about * and the failures that led to these terrible images we have seen splashed across our TV screens the past week, but what we have really ignored is a much greater problem. That problem is the assimiliation of the African American community into our economic system, and the lack thereof. Racism and education deficiencies are easy to pinpoint, but much harder to address with practical solutions. New Orleans, while perhaps the extreme, is by no means the exception. New York, Chicago, LA, Atlanta, Kansas City, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, etc. ... every major city..., we have the same disaster affecting our African American communities. Extreme poverty coupled with terrible education levels. We are never going to solve it by boosting standard of living increases in welfare payments. We have failed these people on a grand scale. IMO, infusion of money is not necessarily the answer. We could give reparations and it still wouldn't solve a damn thing. Why is no one willing to tackle this issue? It's not going anywhere, and it will only get worse and it will affect each and every one of us in the future. I am deeply saddened by the thought that generations upon generations of people have lived in N.O. and other places with absolutely no hope of a better future. It's like we pay for it to keep it out of our faces.

I'm sorry for ranting but the images of this past week really make me wonder what we are doing as a society when we have so many among us that we seem to "pay off" for a subsistence living so they aren't on our doorstep? Well, this week they were in our living rooms and it's high time we did something about it. You want to talk about an embarrassment in our hurricane reaction, the bigger embarrassment is that we have millions living in utter squaler while we argue about BS.

[valerief]

1. Yeah, jobs would help

But they'd have to go India/China/Phillipines for them.

[Cleita]

2. Nothing will be done about this until we put Democrats back .

in charge and preferably Social Democrats.

[applegrove]

Racism is an issue. But less I think than wanton disregard of children.

Remember the army stood down for 4 days while the pot boiled in Louisianna. Half of the people there - or thereabouts were kids. How many kids? Were there 10,000? And old & sick.

I'm one for ending racism and having good public schools all the way around. But this is a little different. Racism is a thoroughfare to a political ends for some people.

But so - apparently are children.

[oldlady]

3. The problem is larger than a missing ingredient in life's recipe...

I've struggled with this for a long time & especially over the past year. It isn't jobs, reparations, education, housing... it's us-- including US, including me. Everytime I try to understand this racial divide, whether in education, employment, social mobility... it seems the problem is so total it cannot be handled in categories.

I live in a liberal town: US Senator Feingold, an openly lesbian US Congress Representative, the home of Fighting Bob LaFollette, our long-term mayor led the campus Dems during the 60s, my alder is a Progressive, our Common Council President is a Progressive/Green. Even my Governor (Doyle) is accessible to me-- he and his wife raised two adopted African-American sons and are mentors to an African-American boy who lives near me (I live and work in HUD housing)--Governor & Mrs. Doyle see him at least once each week and they welcomed us into their home three times this summer, including letting my neighborhood kids take over the mansion for a day to film a movie on the property-- rather unheard of in most states, I think. (Madison, Wisconsin -- twice voted the best place to live in the USA by Money magazine-- we have a nationally recognized University, reportedly great schools (though I dispute that claim), low unemployment, excellent public transportation including bike paths & services for the disabled and women, blah-blah-blah.. My own neighborhood, although poor-- our median income is $11,000 year and average family size is 4 -- is SAFE, nurturing, we have a great community center, technology lab, Head Start, GED & ESL classes on site, Evenstart, an alternative high school completion program, college preparedness groups, college scholarships for our residents only... we have RESOURCES that most neighborhoods like ours dream about. And, we are racially diverse: 30% SE Asian, mostly Hmong & Lao, 50% African-American, with about 15% of those being new immigrants from Sudan, Togo, Gambia, Nigeria; 20% Latino/a and 10% White.

You know what else we have??? The HIGHEST incarceration rate per capita of persons of color in the United States -- that's right-- we outrank Los Angeles, NYC, Chicago, you name it. Liberal Madison imprisons/jails more persons of color per capita than any other place in America.

We're politically liberal/progressive -- blue city, blue county, blue state (barely)-- I campaigned for Kucinich myself for months & no one yelled at me -- he actually had a better than national showing here.

So, let's face it the problem is not JUST institutional racism. It's people. It's us. It's not going to go away through formulas. We need dialogue and self-examination. The latter first, preferably.

My heart breaks over this, because I'm tired of the divide. Thanks for letting me spill.

peace.