[Vision2020] Foot in mouth disease (was federal response to Katrina, etc.)

[Joan Opyr]

Pat Kraut writes:

> I too have wondered if any of the squawkers are aware of the massive
> problem. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't as bad as some would like us 
> to
> believe. The black leadership is only accusing Bush of racism because 
> they
> have failed their people so badly.Why were all those people, of any 
> color,
> some of the poorest in the city, living so close to the problem? The 
> whole
> area is run by democrats so the black leadership is desperately trying 
> to
> blame anyone but them.

Woman, if you keep your foot in your mouth much longer, you're going to 
have to have your tongue re-soled.  Why were poor black people living 
so close to the problem?  I don't know . . . because they were poor?  
Because they were black?  Because they were poor and black?  I 
understand that you are from Idaho, one of the whitest states in 
America, and, what's more, that you are from rural Northern Idaho.  I 
know this, and I make allowances for your lack of first-hand knowledge 
about urban demographics, but surely -- surely -- even you must know 
that the poor always live on the wrong side of the tracks, or, in this 
case, the wrong side of the levees.  The poor never occupy the high 
ground ANYWHERE.  And who are the poor?  In New Orleans, as in the rest 
of the South, the poor are predominantly black.  Further, New Orleans, 
like most Southern cities, is still segregated.  The South is no longer 
legally segregated, but it is an unfortunate political and economic 
reality that black people and white people do not live in the same 
neighborhoods.  There are a few token African-Americans in a few 
upscale white neighborhoods, but I can assure you, there's a tipping 
point.  When a neighborhood gets "too black," house prices drop and 
white flight begins.

It's also the case that rich black people and poor black people don't 
live in the same neighborhoods, anymore than rich white people and poor 
white people do.  Poor people of all colors live in the worst locations 
and in the greatest danger, always.  Think back to when Paradise Creek 
here in Moscow flooded some years ago.  Whose living rooms were 
drowned, the folks up in the $300,000 houses in Fort Russell and Indian 
Hills, or those in the more modest homes down on Blaine and Maybelle?

As for your criticizing the black leadership of New Orleans and 
determining that "those people" have failed "their people" and thus are 
just hunting around now for scapegoats, do you really want to go there, 
Pat?  I might argue (with some justification) that you yourself are 
desperately seeking some black Democrats to blame so that you can 
protect your white Republican idol, George Bush.  A whole hell of a lot 
went wrong in New Orleans, things that didn't go wrong in North 
Carolina and South Carolina when hurricanes Hugo and Andrew hit.  FEMA 
was run back then by a highly competent Clinton appointee; Hugo and 
Andrew came far inland and hit the economically prosperous, not just 
the coastal or river-dwelling poor; white people suffered in those 
hurricanes, not just poor black people -- white people with a sense of 
entitlement and the privileged expectation that their needs would be 
met.  If you don't think that any of that might have accounted for the 
faster, more satisfactory federal response, then you don't live in the 
same world I do.

I suggested yesterday that Donovan board a bus for Kansas.  Might I 
offer you a trip to Biloxi?  No, wait -- no need to go quite that far.  
Why don't I just drop you off on Sprague Avenue in Spokane?  I'll come 
back and pick you up -- just as soon as I've sold enough plasma to pay 
for the gas.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com
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