Doctor Grandma

This morning I give a lecture on Hurricane Katrina. It all happened 5 years ago. I relate it to Stratification, inequality, class difference mixed with race, in America. The students like the subject, it is interesting for them. They are shocked when I get to the part about babies dying for lack of water in the Superdome.

It is a horrifying story. I get angry and sad every time I review it. Overwhelmed at the suffering. Remembering tv shots of people with arms outstretched, standing on their rooftops with signs, “HELP US!” And every face was brown. I remember someone saying, “If those were little teenage white cheerleaders, they wouldn’t have been left there. They wouldn’t have been taken to some deserted highway intersection and left there with no water, food, or protection.”

It is a story of tragedy, of a nation full of itself, floundering in a bureaucracy that did not function at the time most needed by its own people. No one expected Katrina to be this bad. It was a bad girl, coming across Florida as a Categotry 1 and hitting New Orleans as a Category 5. The people who never evacuated were the poorest of the poor. No car, no money, no place else to go = No evacuation.

I cannot imagine being holed up in the Superdome, not being ALLOWED to leave, and my baby dying for lack of water. Can you, really? in America? Can you imagine watching your own mother die for lack of medicine and medical care, and leaving her  body covered with a rag, to rot for days? No assistance? This is America?

I do not want this story to die out, as those 1800+ people did 5 years ago. We need to be reminded. My students need to hear it. So it never happens again. It is horrifying.

The Director of FEMA resigned. So did the Supt. of the New Orleans Police Dept. after law suits.

Federal marshalls positioned themselves on top of a bridge and started shooting (black) people trying to walk out of the flooding, over to the safer side, the richer, white areas. This HAPPENED, it is documented, and people testified they did it in court. I know academics who were with them and wrote about it later. The fear of hordes of uneducated  black folk streaming into their rich areas was too much. They brought out their guns. People were picked off their rooftops and left on deserted parts of highways with no water or food. What exactly were they supposed to do?

Was there looting? YES. And violence. It was chaos, but it was also unnecessary. That’s the really sad part. The American Federal Corps of Engineers was found responsible for the levee breaches, which then poured Lake Pontchatrain into the lower 9th ward. But they did not have to suffer or pay out a dime, due to protection clauses put in place years before, at the time of another hurricane.

Citizens came with their own boats, volunteering to rescue people themselves, and were turned away. They didn’t have the proper credentials, or clearance. This was bureaucracy at its worst.

Katrina survivors were scattered all over the country. Most of them never returned to New Orleans. Ray Nagin, who screamed over the news for those in Washington to “get off their asses and do something” is no longer mayor.

The city today is back to life, a fun place to visit, full of music and people. Academics take their conferences to New Orleans and have a great time in the French quarter. But in the lower 9th ward, houses are still boarded up. Churches do their best to serve the folks living there. It has not been rebuilt.

This could have been America at its BEST. We have a big heart. People tried to help. There is a lot of love in America, and most people don’t carry around the prejudices we used to. We realize people are people. The interesting thing is, when a tragedy happens, bureaucracy takes over. We expect the government to take care of the situation. And in this case, at this time in our history, it did not. It failed us. Citizen groups eventually organized themselves as relief agencies and many people put in hours and hours administering to the people, taking them water, food and supplies. Because FEMA never came.

Hurricane Earl is building as I write this, in the Caribbean. I wonder, what will prevent this from happening again? What will be the next tragedy?

First of all, it is not “at” Ground Zero. It is something like 2 — 2  1/2 miles away from Ground Zero, on private property. So where shall we legislate is far enough away? 5 miles? 10? nowhere in NYC? what? and who decides?

I am for it. I think it is perfectly fine to have a house dedicated to the worship of God, from one of the major religions of the world that has been around since about 600 A.D., near ground zero. It would be really nice if we also built a church, a synagoge and maybe a Hindu and Buddhist temple on the same  block! It would be a place of prayer for all peoples, to offer supplication to the One Creator for this to never happen again, to say prayers for peace and an end to senseless killing by radical extremists insane with misplaced anger. Of course, the only thing being built is a mosque.

The Islamic world condemns the horrific tragedy that occurred at Ground Zero. There is a radical and growing, violent element within their own ranks, and I think they cannot be ignored and must be continually fought so that they do not bring more destruction. But this radical faction is not building a mosque near ground zero.

Islam is a worldwide religion, one that brought us algebra, beautiful architecture, a very strict and drug-free way of life, prayer 5X a day, giving to the poor as a matter of worship, and many other things. These are the basic teachings. It united many warring tribes and united them into a strong and disciplined nation of peoples, in its day. The nation with the most Muslims within its borders is INDONESIA. Ask the average American and they would probably say a nation in the Middle East. And by the way, Jesus was from the Middle East. The Sermon on the Mount was given in the Middle East. It is an area of the world rich with history and religion(s).

Islam does not promote terrorism. Their radical extremist minority factions DO.

I really think what it comes down to is that most middle-class and lower-class Americans do not have the slightest understanding of what Islam is, and do not know personally any one Muslim. If they did, they would not be going insane because of a mosque, a house of worship, being built at ground zero on private property.

Freedom of religion has always been a tricky thing in America. George Washington wrote to the “Sons of Israel” and welcomed Jews into colonial life, but we all know we have more church denominations than you can count and churches are also very racially divided. Religion hasn’t exactly been the example of unity and bringing people together in this land of diversity.

What an opportunity here to show our true belief in FREEDOM of religion, to show our tolerance for law-abiding and peaceful people in this nation of different cultures, races and peoples. We say this country was founded on Christianity, but the Christianity of our Founding Fathers was a radical type of Christianity most Americans could not relate to today.

People always want to quote their principles when it is most convenient, and legislate their own morality at times when it gets a little uncomfortable. Educated politicians are on television comparing Muslims to Nazis. PLEASE! GO BACK TO SCHOOL, read another book or two, learn something. It’s like condemning all Europeans because of the Holocaust. These terrorist groups are just that, and they are not the Muslim world. Let’s show our tolerance and brotherhood in action. Who are we as a nation? And who do we want to be? What lessons of tolerance are we to teach our children?

Atlanta opened its rolls for subsidized housing for the 1st time in 8 years and 30,000 people showed up. Just to put their names on the list which currently has NO OPENINGS. People fainted and collapsed in line with the heat. Riot police were called in.

My students might say all those 30,000 people are the reason their taxes are increasing and those 30,000 people should go out & get a job and an education to support their lazy selves! Maybe in another 3-4 years after they graduate with their hard-earned 4-year degree and still have no job, maybe they will remember something — anything at all — from my stratification class, or the chapter on Poverty from my Social Problems class. Do you think??

Do you think all those 30,000 people stood in line because they’re lazy?? Really? Do you think if they were lazy maybe they’d be back at home –which obviously isn’t a home they own these days — playing video games or something?? I think people are dang desparate, are losing their homes while they HAVE jobs nd WORK, or seek work while their unemployment checks run out. I think we are in the middle of a crisis with 10% unemployment nationwide and people are looking for scapegoats.

For example, I heard today the South Carolina legislature proposed making it illegal for illegal residents to LIVE in SC. Wow, all those meat packing plants better raise their pay and look for American workers who might then take it.

People are so cruel and we are very heartless. If I couldn’t make a dime in my own country and businesses were HIRING ME in the next nation over and there was all kinds of possibilities there for my children besides maquiladoras, I do believe I’d try to go there and work. And have my children be born there. We are all human beings trying to survive. Yes we need laws, but there are too many million Mexicans here in our work force to “send them all back home”. People are ignorant. Ignorance is bliss. Them vs. Us.

So I have been out of touch w / the news all summer because I’ve been traveling to my kids & picking up grandkids here & there, for 2 mos. Turning on the news this morning, here is what CNN is telling me:

1. A clerk stopped a bank robber by talking to him about Jesus. I commend her faith. Someone else could have and would have blown her away, but this man wasn’t a violent person. He said ‘God bless you’ and told her he was robbing her because he needed $300. or he would be evicted from where he lives. See what condition people are in today?? They are not all evil-spirited criminals who want to hurt people. Does that give him the right to rob someone or not be punished? No. It just means he is not mean spirited, and part of the problem is the social condition of our SOCIETY. Go back to DURKHEIM and read about the state of “anomie” — confusion, disarray, disconnectedness among people, resulting in more crime, more suicide, a sense of hopelessness. He wrote this 100+ yrs. ago. — So the “robber” left without the money and told he he was carrying a BB gun.

2. Huge flood in Pakistan, as many as 1500 dead. Lives lost and disrupted, makes me think of rescue efforts there compared to here.

3. Oil-based violence in the Niger Delta region.

4. In the Gulf, the oil cap is working but unstable. Who knows if it will hold or for how long. I can never remember the # of millions or billions of gallons of oil that have been released to the fish and living things in the Gulf. Was it 5 million?

I have to leave now for my college, to meet a student and my colleague. Seems there is never time to think and write. Even when one has the “summer off”.

(AFP/Thony Belizaire)What comes to mind to write about Haiti, is that I was watching CNN night before last, and saw starving hungry people standing in a food aid line, who eat about once every 3 days right now. And then I saw armed law enforcement spraying them back with pepper spray.  It was the most disgusting display of human tragedy I’ve ever seen.

Any of us would give our dinners to these suffering people. Millions upon millions are being collected and sent, and in the meantime, their infrastructure, airports, docking stations for ships, are so destroyed, plus the general state of chaos where bureaucracy no longer works to get anything done, that 150-200 planes WITH SUPPLIES AND FOOD await PERMISSION TO LAND.

Conditions are so unimaginable, it boggles the mind to even think about it. What good does it do for me to sit here and write about it.

The cruelty of racism, oppression, colonialism from years and decades past set up Haiti to be the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. And now the latest, a huge earthquake. You can’t help but see the beautiful brownness of the people in all the news coverage. It reminds me of Katrina footage.

Today I read they pulled a 16-yr-old girl from the wreckage of a house, who had been buried for 2 weeks. She is alive and no doctor knows why.

What this shows is how the world needs to come together — I mean really come together — and have a functioning world superstate that administers justly and fairly the resources and food of the world. There is no need for such suffering. All we can do is text our $10.00 donations to ATT by texting “haiti” to 90999, and pray that it makes a small difference. All they can do is fight every day for whatever help the rest of the world wants to send to them.

Weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled, “Lil Monkey Black Baby Doll” on this blog. It was my thoughts on the fiasco committed by Costco stores, in putting two baby dolls out for sale, one white and one black. No problem there, except they named the black one “Lil Monkey” and put a banana in its hand, and named the white one “Pretty Panda” with a bottle or something else in its hand. You can read the piece for my detailed reaction.

I just thought I’d write about it being the one and only piece that is consistently and repeatedly searched for and read, on my blog. It FREAKS ME OUT, people!! What the heck?? Are we so obsessed?

What is it about this piece that grabs people’s attention to the point that I get 100 searches on it in one week?

Yes it deals with racism, but so does the piece on the swimming pool in Philadelphia. So does the piece on Henry Louis Gates. Is it the fact that it’s about racism, children and dolls? No one ever comments, they just look it up. Makes me think some instructor is pointing students to it, I don’t know. One person did write to me and thought I was saying it was okay, somehow, for Costco to sell the dolls the way they did. I have no idea how he could think that from reading my post, but he did. His comments were so angry and full of profanity that I deleted them.

so you tell me, why the fascination with this post? What else can we talk about, or is there more to say on that one issue but nobody’s speaking up?