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September 07, 2005

No, it wasn't about race. They just happened to be Black.

I've officially lost my sense of humor.

When a twenty-year-old rounds up a bunch of stranded survivors in New Orleans, gets them on a bus, and delivers them to a place that's supposed to be safe, he should be hailed as a hero. And if he were White, or if this were a Hollywood movie, he would be. Instead, he--and we--are greeted with dire predictions of charges that could await him in the future. Looting, stealing, you name it. Because using what's available to save lives is an egregious sin. And when a Black man does this, he's looting, not showing ingenuity or courage.

If we could prosecute murder by negligence, George Bush and his cohorts would surely be thrown in the clink for years.

But that won't happen. What is happening is that poor people are being punished for the negligence of the wealthy and powerful. With no cars, they could not get out of the city, and were trapped by the hurricane. Instead of facing up to this harsh reality, people are going on about how these naughty survivors chose to be there. Last week I pointed out to someone on the train to work that no, many of the survivors had no way to get out of the city, and there was no evacuation plan. No buses. No vans. No nothing.

This was the answer I got: "Yes, but I'm sure a few people wouldn't go, anyway."

Oh, well then. Because you're sure a few people wouldn't leave when instructed to--even if they didn't have a car or anyway to get out anyway--everyone who's there deserves what they get. They must have all chosen to stay there.

Look, I get as exasperated as the next person when people are willfully stupid. And I understand the temptation to believe the lie that people didn't want to leave and wouldn't leave--it makes things easier, somehow. If they had the option and the means to go and didn't take it, it would mean that we wouldn't be screwed over in a similar situation. We'd take prudent action and get out. Except we wouldn't, or we couldn't, but we wouldn't have to worry about this where I am because a lot of the people here are affluent and White.

Oh, no, I had to say it.

Mention race in this, and you get a brigade of barking loons howling and whining about how unfair you're being--or threatening to beat you down. It has nothing to do with race, they say, it's just that all of the people too poor to leave just happened to be Black. And they were obviously stupid for not leaving, even though they couldn't. Besides, they could have packed five days worth of canned goods and three gallons of water, since everyone knows it's a cinch to carry all of that stuff in ninety-degree heat. In chest-deep, fetid water. When you're old and infirm, or ill, or have kids in tow. Surely as the waters rise to the second floor, you could take a deep breath, swim to the kitchen, grab the stuff, and get out to safety? It's just that easy, after all. And if it isn't, it's your fault for being too poor to leave, or too old, or too sick.

Mention race in this, and you get a lot of insistence from the blame the victims first crowd that it's not about race, it's about choices. It's not about race, it's about morals and looting--even though those stories have been roundly discredited. No Virginia, it's not a lawless wasteland out there filled with brown-skinned rapists and looters. It's just a place where we can forget about people and let them rot among the corpses.

Mention race in this, and you'll hear about how race had nothing to do with the fact that it took over five days for help to come. Maybe it was class (though most of the residents too poor to leave just happened to be Black). But it wasn't racism, since no one wished them dead or anything. They just didn't do much to help them.

People all over the country are offering shelter and assistance to the survivors of the hurricane. We're frustrated--we're seeing survivors left in fetid water, sitting on Interstate overpasses, sitting in a cesspool that passes for a shelter. Decent people won't stand for it, but there's little we can do besides offer shelter, give money, and watch how things progress. Or not. We're seeing it on national television, and most of us see what no one dared bring up--racial disparities. The bulk of the survivors and victims are Black and poor. The bulk of the people in Washington who made the cuts to FEMA, who cut the work on the levees short, and who dragged their feet on getting help to our fellow American citizens are White.

Posted by at September 7, 2005 09:38 AM