Published on 09/14/05 at 09:23:23 GMT by Andy Alkaline
"...There were certainly elements in this drama of upper classes abandoning those less fortunate. But the disparity in fortune wasn't only about social and financial differentiations. Racism played a large role in this tragedy, I am sickened to say. Sure there were looters and murders and lawlessness, but there is after every hurricane. Heck, the same stuff happens after cities win the Super Bowl. But in New Orleans' case, these recurring images of young men with guns showed black men. Certain relief organizations refused to go in to the New Orleans area until several days after the hurricane, because they said it was "too dangerous," and this heartless refusal to act was devastating to thousands of innocent people. It even cost hundreds of lives. As I lay in my bed surrounded by my flooded city I heard on the radio caller after caller cry out for help and ask why they and their loved ones were not being rescued. People lay in hospitals and nursing homes and starved to death. It occurred to me that it was more complicated than concluding that suddenly the American government was forgetting these impoverished people, these descendants of the slaves who built New Orleans and this country. Instead, I realized that these poor people hadd been forgotten for hundreds of years..."
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