I just got off the phone with my father who’s been very distressed by all the images and news coming out of New Orleans at this time. A man who’s been expecting some kind of race war since 1984, my father is looking at this moment in time as a perfect opportunity for The Man to finally throw up his hands about The Violent Looting Hordes of Black People and put us all in Gitmo-like camps.
I had to calm him down; he said that things are tense where he is. Since he’s in Los Angeles, I’m not surprised. The images and news of the stranded shooting at rescue helicopters, of the city degenerating into chaos over the past week – those things resonate strongly in a city still simmering in its own racial tensions. For him, our people have turned into animals and it scares him. (He’s having a very Bill Cosby moment.)
He woke me up very early this morning (before church!!) to ask if I’d heard the rumors about cannibalism in New Orleans. I hadn’t. So I googled it. Almost all the sites that mentioned cannibalism were wacked out extreme right-wing, white supremacists. Dad barely heard my reassurances that 'No, black people were not eating dead bodies.'
My father was so distraught he came awfully close to saying things like this guy is saying (found via steve gilliard). I'm not going to go into an impassioned plea for racial tolerance or some pedagogical song-and-dance about how racism takes an individual act, substitutes it for the whole and then leaps off into insanity from there. It's too exhausting to teach white folks (and black folks like my dad) about the power structures of Racism. Let's keep the conversation on the micro level.
Is that what the majority of us think? Deep down, below our manners and our politics? Beyond stats on FEMA, levees, poor planning, poor execution, is this what we really think? Is this the reason we won't donate to the Red Cross? The reason we don't find any sympathy for the people down there? They're just too .... Other for us to really dig?
If it is, the problem isn’t just in New Orleans.
12 comments:
I have been worrying about this too. I honestly can't remember what sparked my worry -- what I read or saw - as I've been reading so much, it's been hard to keep it all discrete.
I worry that rather than feeling empathic for the victims, people will see the desperate actions of some people - and the violent actions of very few - as being evidence that there is something innately wrong with black people.
Yet, I think it was from the link in your last post to the MSNBC transcript, someone said that after Hurricane Andrew (or whatever hurricane it was) people (white people) behaved far worse.
We (white people) are falling vicitm to the fundamental attribution error. We imagine that were we in the same situation, we would behave differently. We have absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, I'd assume we'd behave similarl, maybe even worse due to our senses of entitlement and privilege. The situations the New Orleans have been put into are horrific, and anyone there would just do what it took to survive. Further, anger, helplessness, and fear would run rampant, thus increasing the likelihod that people would act out.
Plus, as I've said elsewhere, I personally have no evidence that I would not stay in my home, despite dire warnings. In fact, I have evidence which likely points to my not leaving: last week I was poor waiting for a check to come; I have no car and thus no way to transport things; I have no renter's insurance and no way to replace things, so I'd likely stay to try to save things; I had no money to rent a car or get a hotel room, so where would I go?
I worry that all of this horrific treatment of mostly poor black people in addition to some of the negative media portrayals may indeed lead to racial tensions elsewhere. It's understandable that it might, but it could likely be prevented had we better leadership.
It's just so typical. We here in America love to praddle on about equality, justice and freedom for everybody, and on and on. But then, bam ~ we so quickly slide into our own class and race fears. Whites are so quick to look at all of "them" ~ looters, and so on. As if all the people wading the muck of New Orleans were violent zombies on the hunt for a fresh victim.
The racism is so glaring and offensive all over the place. From the sidewalk conversations to the misguided captioning of photographs showing people sloughing through the muck with food and water.
At the heart of it lies the deep, deep fundamental breakdown in class equality. Racism threads the class inequality like a fine quilt.
The sad thing is that capitalism, or at least our current value of it as a nation, seems to do nothing but promote this. What's the alternative? Probably not more "compassionate" conservatism, in my opinion. We've got to strive a little more toward equality for everybody ~ regardless of race and/or class. Is this even possible? Or are we already lost? And, for that matter, were we ever found? Or are we simply seeing what was always there, just beneath the dirty, blood-stained surface of American "civilization" . . .
It all stems from fear, I personally believe. Fear and power ($$$$$). And fear is rampant. Dubya has bred insecurity en masse ~ and planted an entire nation's worth of fear. We're addicted to it. We need it. We actually want it. And that's just damn tragic.
Just a few thoughts. Your blog rocks. I lurk all the damn time. Keep it up ~
A human.
i'll be honest about my thinking. the past few days' coverage has forced me to swing between shame and anger.
and the swinging has made me realize something: it's time we all start doing the right thing. (shout out to roomie who boiled it all down this afternoon over beers and bloodys.) it's time we stop looking at other people and basing our actions on what they do.
the looting disgusts us?
so the fuck what?
let's do the right thing.
junkies shooting at rescue helicopters turning your stomach? so the fuck what?
do the right thing.
the pictures of poor black people make us feel all the more superior because we're not them? who the fuck cares?
we should do the fucking right thing.
apathy is not the right thing.
bigotry is not the right thing.
defensiveness is not the right thing.
when are we all going to start doing the right thing?
I made my second donation to the Red Cross this morning. I'll keep doing that, too, unless I just use my fucking head and make one big donation up front, the way I should. Ding, why don't you e-mail me and give me a kick in the ass to do just that? I mean, really. What am I waiting for?
I do wish that more of New Orleans' dispossessed had been white, Asian, and Latino—so that white people watching the tragedies unfold on TV couldn't pretend that this was about "other people." So much of the video could be swapped out with pictures from Haiti or Darfur, you know? Thousands of black people in distress.
At least there was the universal thing about babies—a blog friend of mine was busy deploring the looters' violence until she saw women holding their listless babies and suddenly, as a mother, understood the humanity at stake. I just don't know what I would do if my child's life was endangered by circumstances beyond my control and I could get no help. Desperate people do desperate things.
Angry Black Bitch had some good stuff to say on this.
yes, she did.
come on, everybody. read Angry Black Bitch - she's on my blogroll so you have no excuse.
(think i'm shrill and angry? i'm a debutante compared to ABB.)
The most interesting part of this situation is that some of those displaced black people will be place in communities around the country, my guess in ghettos. Oh, and I never thought once that I was better then those people while watching the coverage of the aftermath of the hurricane. Why would anyone think like that? Is looting always wrong? Personally I was thinking while watching the broadcast about the looting, was these people are in need and they are afraid. Sure your average criminal will do what a criminals do, STEAL! It’s funny how other countries can react to such acts of desperation without judging it, but Americans, Well... I would have looted just like the people I saw to feed myself, any children and the elderly. Why it is so hard for people to understand what was going on. Nothing about such acts surprises me because I know what its like to be poor, barely making it to survive each day. The people in New Orleans didn't have any directions or information as to what was happening around them. What makes any of us better then THOSE people? I was mad! Not shameful. How so sad for people to think they're so much better because they are above the level of poverty because of their education or job status. I personally saw myself down there and I wanted to run and loot with those people. Attitudes of superiority will keep you loss forever. We all need to stop living lies and start living truthfully. The poor will ALWAYS be with us.
"Whatever you done to the least of these, you have done it to me"
-Jesus Christ
Thanks for letting me stop by.
thanks for stopping by (same to shrinkykitten and Anon #1 - i appreciate your visits.) and thanks for sharing so honestly.
Wow! Angry Black Bitch has done it again! Ding, since you block me from making any comments regarding our last conversation regarding race and class, I suggest you hook up with Angry Black Bitch, she has somethings to teach you about race and class in America.
"Looking at the failure of others is often easier than examining what we ourselves have failed to do.
A bitch's eyes are open, chil’ren, and focused as much on a bitch’s role as the role of the other side"(Angry Black Bitch)
Um...
Attention!
whatever, anonymous.
the fact that you see me and ABB somehow ideologically opposed to each other makes me laugh.
now go away before i delete you.
You are, think about it.
Good bye!
ta!
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