From a white perspective.

[txaslftist]

I watched the scenes from Hurricane Katrina with an incredible amount of worry over the lives of my neighbors in New Orleans.

I learned that people were in the Superdome, waiting for relief that never came.

I saw that blacks were being called "looters" and whites were being called "finders" for engaging in the same behavior.

I read that a white sheriff refused to allow blacks from New Orleans to come into his 'white' suburb and stopped them at gunpoint at a bridge.

I read that the Superdome was made into a virtual prison, but that the national guard was 'smuggling' whites, including Britons and Aussies, out.

I watched the response drag into days while people died in the streets.

I read about FEMAs blocking rescue boats, buses and other volunteers from entering the city for "security reasons".

I read white reactions to FEMA granting of debit cards ranging from 'this will help them buy crack' to 'they only waited in the city to collect their welfare checks'.

I read a supposed expert (undoubtedly white) blame the deaths on the 'welfare state', ignoring the fact that over 75% of the people in NO had jobs and weren't on welfare.

And I feel a deep and abiding shame. I realized that Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream still remains just that, a dream.

A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. We have failed that test.

I am so very sorry.

[Inland]

1. Just another set of ideals ejected by the right wing.

We never got rid of racism. But for many years, we have had political elites that have given the wink and nod to racism for their own political purposes.

From Reagan kicking off his election campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to today, republicans have aided, abetted and been rewarded by racists.

We see in NOLA again how the Bushites desire to escape blame for their own failures fits into the racists desire to blame blacks and their lack of desire to see blacks as Americans, or not dangerous, or something that if a hurricane should HAPPEN to kill, well......

And not a single republican will speak out. NOT ONE.

[Catfight]

2. Well written, I've been ashamed of being white since I read "Bury

My Heart at Wounded Knee." The shame of it all is we allow it to continue without contesting the current state of business. Unless you're white, have a penis and born to the right income bracket, it's just a dream. I wish we could send the entire bush clan back to germany.

[NNN0LHI]

3. And the whole world is watching too n/t

[Toots]

4. and the Freepers chant "We Don't Care" "We Don't Care" "We Don't Care"

:hurts:

[Just Me]

5. We have been confronted with truths that have been hidden,...

,...or suppressed or ignored. In a way, we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing one reality presented by our government and media while another exists right right before our very eyes.

I've know about the invisible poor and oppressed for quite some time. I've acknowledged that our society has chosen the path of least resistence by simply ignoring the suffering that is happening in the most wealthy and resourceful nation on the planet.

I've wondered when, if ever, we, as a society/people/nation, are going to do the self-examination necessary to advance our own humanity. We don't even acknowledge the economic oppression our own large multi-national corporations have imposed, with force, upon countries and peoples around the world.

I don't know. I hope a mass awareness and compassionate human movement for social and economic justice is taking place.

[confludemocrat]

6. Having said anything like this earlier brought a ton of bricks, even here

Now it's pretty hard for the soft-core, faint-hearted "liberals" to do anything but admit what you say is true. People don't like that kind of discomforting truth, even here.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Boy ain't that the truth. They scatter like roaches when a light comes on

:eyes:

[txaslftist]

8. I have to travel a lot, and mostly can only get a.m....

...so I listen to Rush and Hannity and Reagan from time to time. Their common chord on racism is to deny its existence.

They also imply that blacks have some sort of sense of entitlement and ingratitude... that the "good" ones can get ahead without help...blahblahblah.

I always thought that kind of talk was wrongheaded and stupid. I never really thought of it as dangerous until now.

The 'conservative' view seems to be that blacks have gotten (from the civil rights movement) all they could have asked for, and anything else comes at the expense of whites.

The reality is that "anything else" -respect, dignity, rejecting the instant criminality assessment- is only their due, and would enrich all of us. In this and so many other ways the right divides the people against themselves.

This is why so many poor whites go with the Republicans, this "them or us" mentality; when really it is the poor who are our true base.

[confludemocrat]

9. Growing up in a diverse town where even white kids read Diary of Malcom X

did not prepare me for when I left that environment and saw how prevalent and ingrained racism is in this country. That problem and its depth and extent is kept off to the side and steered away from even by respectable liberals because it seems so very very uncomfortable, I guess. But the divide and dysfunctional condition of race relations is laid bare from time to time but never so clearly as this time. But yes, the people you mention slighly, expertly and sometimes overtly know how to tap into that faultline. And look how successful they are.

Finally, look how little particpation this thread gets, steered away from I think for obvious reasons.