Katrina Aftermath: The Racial Arsonists Go to Work

If there's been a more inflammatory opinion piece posing as news since Hurricane Katrina than this AP "report," I haven't seen it.  The article is ostensibly about the outpouring of sympathy from blacks toward the black victims of Katrina (which, unfortunately, implies that blacks do not react with sympathy to disasters where the victims appear to be predominately white, but we'll get to that in a moment), but it is rife with inflammatory editorial jibes, beginning with the lede:

To blacks, Hurricane Katrina has become a generation-defining catastrophe -- a disaster with a predominantly black toll, tinged with racism. . . . (emphasis added)

Wait a second.  We don't yet know what the toll is, so how can anybody conclude that the toll was "predominantly black"?  Plaquimines Parish is roughly 80% white, and nobody knows yet how many people there were killed -- it's been practically wiped off the map.  St. Bernard's Parish is roughly the same story.  And there can be little doubt that most of the victims in lower Mississippi were probably white.  But we don't know, yet.

The premise is appallingly stupid, anyhow.  Hurricanes do not select people by race.  And the truth is that huge amounts of federal resources have been diverted to New Orleans,  instead of being allocated to Mississippi and the eastern Louisiana region, precisely because of the uniquely chaotic situation there (which was most arguably precipitated by the failure of a predominantly black city government to effectively evacuate people or at least provide for the needs of those who couldn't evacuate).

But Mr. Washington is just getting warmed up:

''You'd have to go back to slavery, or the burning of black towns, to find a comparable event that has affected black people this way,'' said Darnell Hunt, a sociologist and head of the African American studies department at UCLA.

If the rescue effort had not been so mishandled, and if those who suffered so needlessly had not been so black and so poor, perhaps Hurricane Katrina would have been just another destructive storm.  (emphasis added).

Slavery?  The burning of black towns?  This is strong stuff.  So, a natural disaster of unprecedented scale is now equated to past  deliberate acts by slaveowners and people in white sheets.  Unbelievable!

Let's analyze the use of the conjunctive, "and," in the second paragraph.  By joining the two phrases in the conjunctive -- the rescue effort was mishandled AND the victims were black and poor -- the writer clearly means that "Hurricane Katrina would have been just another destructive storm" if the victims had been white and not poor (which doesn't mean rich, but frankly I'm not sure what Washington means).  The racism inherent in this assertion is simply appalling.

But wait, there's more:

But Katrina's searing images -- linking nature's wrath and the nation's wrongs -- have fanned the smoldering resentments of the civil rights, Reaganomics and hip-hop eras all at once.

''Something about this is making people remember their own personal injustices,'' said author damali ayo, whose book How to Rent a Negro takes a satirical look at race relations.

'You don't look at Rodney King and say, `I remember when I got beat up.' But people remember being neglected, unimportant, overlooked, thought of as 'less than.' That's a very common experience for black people.''

You know, I guess if I had a racial excuse for every slight that's been directed toward me in my life, whether real or perceived, it would be more comforting than having to confront the possibility that sometimes life isn't fair, or that sometimes things don't go the way I would have them go.  That way, I could blame all of those hurt feelings on the bigotry of others.  And if I saw white people suffering, I could comfort myself with the notion that their suffering was the fault of others.

And no racialist bonfire would be complete without ... Tavis Smiley:

Tavis Smiley has devoted much of his television talk show to Katrina.

''I've seen black folk come together around any number of issues. It's usually either a head or a heart issue,'' he said. "For example, we came together after the election of 2000, when Bush essentially stole the election. That was a head issue.''

No, it was a stupid issue, because it didn't happen.

With Katrina, "our head is saying we know that what happened here is wrong . . . and our hearts at the same time go out to these people because we know, we feel their pain.''

Again, this begs the question:  Why wouldn't blacks feel equally sympathetic to white victims of this disaster?

SWLiP is not holding his breath in waiting for an answer.

UPDATE:  Like a dog licking up his own vomit, Cornel West adds his (entirely predictable) two cents worth.

LATER:  More related thoughts here.

Comments

[alene]

The race obsessives are creating their own Jenin. And when the numbers are ascertained, and we see that Katrina was undiscriminating in her lethality, the story these guys tell will still be "true". They've invested in it now; it validates their grievance, and justifies their resentment.

[Bill]

To equate the fat, idle "poor" of New Orleans with the poor of any third world nation demonstrates a complete lack understanding of the actual conditions in those same third world nations. This is beyond obscene.

[Mike]

Until someone with integrity in the eyes of the public steps up and calls the race hustlers on their game. They will continue to exploit situations like this in order to perpetuate within the black community. The illusion of their relevance and importance as a leader of the community.

How long has Jesse Jackson been supposedly working to improve the lives of black folks? 30 - 40 years? If you listen to him, blacks are only marginally better off now than they were 40 years ago. Which leads me to wonder - Why, if Jesse's been on the job for all those years. And black folks are essentially just as screwed now as then..
After proving to be a complete failure when it came to improving the lives of blacks during his tenure as chief advocate and activist. How is it Jesse still has a job or garners any respect within that community?
I'll tell ya how... See one day Jesse realized that to succeed at what he was originally doing meant being out of a job. Who'd need anybody to work towards blacks being treated equal to everyone else - if they were?
So, smart man that he is, he devised away to always be relevant and needed.
The key to permanent employment lay in convincing blacks that they hadn’t moved light years away from the conditions common to the 50's and 60's. But that they were being perpetually victimized. And that racism was still everywhere and in all whites. No longer could it just be identified when some idiot dropped the 'N' word. Now simply saying "you people" or even using a word that wasn’t racist but sounded close enough to be - (like the word "niggardly". Dutch in origin, meaning thrifty, good with money) - all were indicative of rampant, institutionalized racism.
Thus Jesse was able to create the illusion of perpetual victimization. Augmented further by the fact that in order to accept that certain words were indeed racist, one had to be fairly illiterate.
Complicating ones job prospects - which itself becomes more proof for the race hustlers that they're needed as advocates to do battle with the man and his racist policies.

Quite the racket ol Jesse has. Complete with operations that shake down corporations under the threat of boycotts and mob action.

The mafia did this shit and did or is doing time. Jesse does it and gets a speaking spot at the dems presidential conventions...

What a world.
M

[Ronald Rutherford]

From my experience, I can agree that many (not all) have rose colored glasses that percieve discrimination when the problem was just "shit happens". As a retail manager of a large chain working in Inglewood, CA I would on occasion have a customer say that another store was racist and was treated badly. One occasion the lady said that the salesman had repackaged her printer because she was black. The sales staff are paid commision and as such are always looking for the best boxes and do not discriminate because it will hurt their paycheck. I also knew that printer had a large number of returns.
Another time I called in an order to the local southern cooking black owned restaurant (the owner knew my name) and when I got there he said they ran out of catfish and had to wait to have something else cooked. In the meantime all the other customers (I felt) were staring at me, being the only person of lighter persuasion there. Was this racist? Or just I had the luck of the draw and was shit on?