The Shame of Katrina
Submitted by DeniseS on March 7, 2007 - 6:35pm.
--- Justice & Peace
I am actually not sure where this topic goes...and I don't have this week's NCR beside me, but the cover story on Katrina, and the US response was one of the best I have ever read. (See: NCR March 2, 2007, About Katrina: Catastrophe exposes U.S. race reality, by Bryan Massingale.) The connections of racism, materialism, and militarism were so very well researched. My heart was touched deeply as I read the words...and I want to share them w/ friends and coworkers alike. How resistant we are to look at "white privilege" and the connections to war and poverty. KUDOS to the author!
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Denise, thank you for
Denise, thank you for posting this link. I welcome your voice.
I have followed the commentary of African-American columnist Bob Herbert on Katrina with great interest. He has done much to keep the faces of those dispossessed by the storm in our minds' eyes, and to remind us of the racial connections to our shameful forgetfulness of these human beings.
In yesterday's NY Times, he published an op-ed piece about the treatment of soldiers returning from Iraq entitled "Lift the Curtain." Herbert has drawn parallels between how our present pro-life administration treated the folks in New Orleans during and after Katrina, and how it's dealing with the soldiers returning from Iraq.
A memorable set of lines from his commentary yesterday:
"And President Bush has always given the impression that he is more interested in riding his bicycle at the ranch in Texas than in taking care of his life and death responsibilities around the world.
That whistling sound you hear is the wind blowing across the emptiness of the administration’s moral landscape."
Yuo're right: racism, militarism, and materialism are connected, and the NCR article did a great job of illustrating those connections in the Katrina story.
William D. Lindsey