Enter the Storm

interesting how captions can change the meaning of an image…

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44689

I sit here at work stunned… stunned by the awful images of the destruction as a result of Hurricane Katrina - but more than the inundation of photos of people on roofs and wading through what is now essentially a sess pool, I’m absolutely stunned by the persistent and notorious racism of this fucking country.   The media’s coverage of the looters has been heart breaking… There are so many issues here - the fact that the people you see being airlifted and rescued are BLACK and probably poor.   The people who couldn’t afford to flee the city when the evacuation order was made - the people who had no cars or worse, nowhere to evacuate to were left in the city hoping to survive the storm as they had done so often in the past. Unfortunately luck wasn’t with the Big Easy this time.  This time America is left to see what levels of insanity people are pushed to when those who are poor - and struggling to survive with not much to live for are thrust into a situation where the normal order of society is thrown completely out of wack and their own safety and lives are even more on the line.   These people probably don’t have homes to take the armloads of Nikes to - and if they did, where the hell would they wear them to?  They’re stealing TVs but there’s no electricity in the city probably for months.   Obviously the mentality that has sadly festered in such situations that existed prior to Monday morning are now being let loose on the city of New Orleans.  So instead of people asking themselves - what might drive a person who has never had anything, who has just lost the only things and comfort they may have had to do such inane things as stealing toasters?   They’re noticing the skin color of those individuals who represent the "looters" and again the incepent racism creeps through in their reception of these images.   So just like the Hallaway and all the other white chicks who got so much media attention when the missing Black women did not and America’s reasons were because it could "identify" with Natalee, etc., it will not want to help because it cannot possibly comprehend anything about the people in the images.  And isn’t funny after being here so long - they know nothing about, and cannot identify, or be empathetic towards us - yet we know everything about "them".

Perusing many a blog in the last couple of days has made me increasingly disgusted, sad and full of rage at the freedom with which people can refer to the people shown as "animals’ and that "it’s NOT a race issue", and that "there isn’t a focus only on African American looters but that it’s only African Americans who are looting", and my favorite: "the police should shoot to kill and ask no questions."   WTF?!?!? So now we have a literal birdseye view of how serious this situation of race here in this country is - But yet the mainstream "liberal" media shows us just what we want to see - a black man hemmed up on a wall with a garbage bag of goods with a shotgun at his back.   It feeds right into the notion that white people should fear, control, and contain blacks as much as possible, because when the cats are away - the mice lose their fucking minds…. Or so it seems according to the news, OpEds, and blogs.   Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s absolutely disgusting that people are shooting @ rescue helicopters and emergency workers, taking over hospitals and stealing drugs and guns and that it’s basically chaos in a very time sensitive, dire health concern situation.   But on the ground, who would know how dire this situation is - how could they know that the water could potentially kill them if ingested.  How would they know that even if they survive in attics and roofs (not sure how without drinking water) that they are literally in the midst of an ecological and public health crisis.   That cholera, or thyphoid, or hell even yellow fever could take them out? They couldn’t know.  They also couldn’t know that the government is considering abandoning the city - hey maybe that’s what some of the thugs want - but basic human functioning tells me that’s not the case… Hopefully the will to survive would trump the will to live like a king/queen in a flooded city or hell maybe not…. I can’t speak on what it must be like for ANY of those people right now.  

Funny that the governmental funding that New Orleans received in past years for levee maintenance has pretty much dwindled away thanks to Bush’s war.  The fact that the order to drop sandbags onto the broken levee weren’t followed meaning essentially that the water in ALL of New Orleans will rise to 3ft above sea level meaning the city will be completely flooded out.   But as whites realize that the only people left in New Orleans to save are those with dark skin means there aren’t the throngs of people rushing to volunteer, or donate - to further America’s punishment for that infraction - said individuals are "unworthy of being rescued thanks to their disrespectful looting".   Because, afterall "if they were looting for survival items it would be another thing" - but that goes back to the age old issue of media representation.   There’s no telling what’s being left out of the reporting and photos… Show them as animals and "we’ll" treat them as such.  My heart is breaking because I wish there was something I could do.   My heart is breaking because we will NEVER be seen as or treated as equal in this country and world for that matter.  Other county’s coverage follows US media further tainting the world’s image of what African Americans are "really like" My disdain and rage are all encompassing right now.  The situation itself is too massive to even fathom - but when we now have to profusely pepper it with overt themes of racism - I’d like to wretch.  

So now what??  They’re saying the city will be uninhabitable for months… Everyone’s required to leave - they’re essentially abandoning the city - my question is: Is that with or without the people originally left behind?   And I don’t mean from Saturday’s evacuation…. Where will they go and worse - what do they have to return to?  I’m sure the State Farm Insurance agent never made it to certain areas hawking renters and homeowners insurance - having lived in such areas, I know that fact alone will make you ineligible to even get a policy - so imagine that… you’re black, poor, you lost EVERYTHING, you have no insurance, no money - no access to an ATM even if you DID have money, possibly no friends/family outside of New Orleans because your family’s been there for generations - WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO?!?!?  

America never wants to REALLY deal with two issues - issues of race and issues of poverty - now America’s being forced to reckon with these issues and as expected is doing a supremely shitty job.  It’s like some fucked up sci-fi novel or Nazi sociological experiment - what would happen if whites and the rich, completely abandoned a city - after turning off all power and water - what would the barbaric folks do?   But anyhow, the scapegoating and blame game begins.  Some folks on Fox News are applying ridiculous names to Katrina to assert their own fucked up political agendas saying that the liberals will try to use this against the conservatives… I’m just watching now as the hard core folks there and in other places unleash their true feelings of the inhabitants (and the dead) in New Orleans and wondering what if any backlash will occur - This was probably a garbled mess of thoughts but there’s just so much I’m feeling right now.   In no way do I condone looting for some bullshit that you never had, guns, or any of that nefarious shit - But more importantly, I don’t condone America’s time tested way of responding to and treating blacks as second class citizens.   I’m sure that Bush in particular is probably thinking that he’d rather send National Guard to protect the oil reserves in Iraq then to send them to NOLA to save THOSE ingrates…. Let them go down with the city….