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AbbeFaria
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: Gangnam
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 Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:21 am Post subject: Re: Racial Angle on Katrina Victims |
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| sundubuman wrote: |
| If you read the NY Times or listen to the general blathering of the media elite, it is a mantra that Katrina highlighted continuing racial problems in America. I'm sure it was reported similarly in Europe and Canada..... |
Doesn't surprise me in the least. "Leaders" such as Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jackson are made rich by instilling a victim mentality into their supporters and spreading a message of "it's not your fault, it's the white man". A lot of black people in the US have an attitude of entitlement. A 'what are you going to do for me' point of view. I'm poor, I'm helpless, give me something.
There was no racial angle to Katrina, plain and simple. FEMA responded less than 24 hours later then they did to Hurricane Hugo in the early 90's. FEMA will be the first to tell you it takes them between 3 and 5 days to get mobilized and get things moving. Maybe they'll try and speed up response time since they're under the microscope now, but at the time of Katrina that was there time table for any city in the country. The first line of defense a city has in any natural disaster is the local government. The Mayor in otherwords. And I can't seem to recall...what race is Nagan?
The people of New Orleans should have set him in a boat and set fire to it and pushed it out to sea for the way he screwed that up. He's somehow mananged to salvage what's left of his political career by pointing his finger at Bush (of course) and FEMA and everyone else who had absolutely nothing to do with him having no evacuation plan and leaving those hundreds of school busses in parking lots to get flooded out.
No, I'm not black, but that's got nothing to do with it. However, my mother married a black man in 1985 and between '85 and '93 I spent more time with my step-relatives then with my mothers side of the family. I grew up in black neighborhoods and have had discussions ad naseum with an uncountable number of black people on these very topics. After I've ripped holes in all their conspiracy theories, 'facts' and beliefs, they all, without fail, 100%, fall back to "you don't understand, you're not black", like that some how makes them right, no matter what the truth is. It's a scam.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the Circus of Stupidity the black leaders put on after Katrina was Farrakhan accusing the US Government of blowing up the levees to flood black people out.
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Once it recovers or is rebuilt what makes you think the majority of blacks will not be back? This is/was their home after all. |
Lot of reasons, really, and you don't have to think too hard to come up with them.
The planet has already gone about a quarter around the sun since the disaster. The place is still a shambles, with little joy on the horizon, if any.
The wealthier people (read : usually, white) had options to stay with friends and get temporary housing until they could figure a way back or even rent their own apartments somewhere else rather than relying in FEMA for help ...
But people who live from week to week (read : more commonly, the black underclass) will need to find work pretty quickly wherever they landed after the storm, and put their kids in schools wherever that might be, and maybe they think where they ended up really IS better, just like Babs Bush said in that goofy quote a lot of us remember very well from last September.
New Orleans was not just a place, it was a Myth - Birth of Jazz and a park named after Louis Armstrong, a place created by the likes of Jean Lefite and Marie LeVeau, and god knows, even Ann Rice and The Vampire Le'Stat, but also Cafe DuMonde and who can forget Mardi Gras, which I also suspect will never be the same in way - and I take some blame on myself for encoding those memes and incorporating them into my view of the world, ascribing reality enough to all this that ...
That it is THESE things that grieve me as much or more than the fact that people lived and died there, had families and raised kids, and though these things might happen again in that place, there are a lot of indications about that it might not be the same people, and that what will be rebuilt will be disneyfied version of what once was there. It saddens me that I grieve the loss of these intangibles more than the actual homes and people who made and built the place ...
Even with that, it is sad, and it needs to be mourned, but we Americans don't have the right mindframe to ever recognioze when something is lost, let alone feel the sadness of its passing. |
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joe_doufu
Joined: 09 May 2005
Location: Elsewhere
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| And you missed my point. The city is still "trashed". Once it recovers or is rebuilt what makes you think the majority of blacks will not be back? This is/was their home after all. |
I don't think most will go back. These are people who live from paycheck to paycheck (and food stamp to food stamp). Many couldn't even afford to get out of NOLA, and they certainly can't afford the return trip plus the costs of repairing their houses and restoring their furnishings. Real estate investors (and I do know a few black ones in NOLA) will buy their houses cheap, and the owners will consider the money a blessing and stick with the jobs (or welfare) they've found in Houston and Birmingham.
I believe New Orleans will become the new Las Vegas. It will be the artificial incarnation of the mythical New Orleans. What I wonder about is the music culture... where will all the music go? New Orleans produced the greatest music in the world because there were so many people for whom it was a passion, and the best rose to the top. I'm afraid the best jazz groups will be invited back to play in the casinos and Bourbon Street bars, but that underpinning of rising stars will be scattered. |
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matthews_world
Joined: 15 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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Why buy property there anyway? Unless some engineering marvel is completed, New Orleans most probably sinks underwater in the near future. With global warming and hurricane activity, world coastlines are going to be altered anytime here soon.
There was a thread on this last fall after Katrina hit with a map that showed the changing of southern Louisiana's topography in the next few years.
Buying real estate would be a very risky investment. Heck, look at what happened to Venice recently. They're also relying on an engeneering miracle that will take years to complete to reclaim the square footage they lost.
A prediction of sizeable importance - Incheon Airport sunken in the forseeable future!  |
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kidcharlemagne
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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i think that a large number of the locals will return to new orleans. maybe not right away but surely in the next couple years. new orleans is and always has been a tourist city. who do think does most of the minimum wage work there? the vast majority of the cooks, dishwashers, bell boys, ferry workers, street car drivers, bus drivers, janitors - almost any job that involves manual labor was done by the blacks.
i grew up in new orleans and most of my family still lives there. it's uncomfortable now but they all know it's going to get better.
as far as what the city will become, i don't think it will be very different from what it was. the 9th ward will have to be rebuilt somehow - it might lack some of it's original character but the blacks will still return to there. the music scene will still be great - where else could kermit ruffins or the meters or galactic call home?
and unlike joe dofu, i liked the tourists when they came to new orleans, as i suspect most locals do. i was always glad they could let loose in new orleans and spend their money. sometimes the locals forget just how special the city really is and you can feel the magic again through the awe on the faces of the tourists in the city.
and mardi gras?! nothing can stop mardi gras.... everyone will still eat kingcake and the girls will all kiss you and show you their breasts for the long beads around your neck. laissez les bon temps roulez! |
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