Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

No, Urban Myth: this is the quote that I wrote, in its entirety. Let's not reduce it to one word and focus on that one word, ignoring it's context.

I read this again, and it still seems reasonable to me.

If there are issues with the post, please take up the entire post, not just one word of it...

[TheUrbanMyth]

And again I was not the one who reduced it to one word. Please read Mr. The Bobster's last post. I was merely pointing out that I was not the one who used that word first.

And I have no issues with your post and none with you. It was Mr. The Bobster who using your post and the words that you wrote attacked me and reduced your post to one word.

[The Bobster]

I will offer an apology to TUM for saying that no one besides him had said anything about this disaster being "random." Yes, one other poster had done so - though I have yet to read, anywhere, even ONE human being on the planet make a similar claim to what the two of you are saying. I was wrong to single out TUM, excuse me, I was distracted, in the process of preparing to go out to dinner to meet some members of the gf's family. (They liked me, generally, thanks for asking.)

Having said that, the only defense TUM offers is "The other guy said it first, so why are you picking on me?" And while I was off-base to limit my comments to only one person, Gopher at least made the better defense, that the "single word" was part of a larger response that included reference to a "a multi-causal explanation" - one which is mostly implied, I'll note, not clearly explicated.

To be black in American entials a very high probablility of also being poor. When a natural disaster occurs, the poor are hit hardest, and killed in larger numbers than wealthy people. It has been true in the past and it is true today. Racism has existed against black people in America for far longer than mere decades, but hundreds of years. There is nothing "random" about any of this.

Caveats about "bureaucratic SNAFUs" merely beg further questions and these further questions largely revolve around the disproportionate effects these "SNAFUS" had upopn people of color. If it is really all about being poor rather than being black, why are so many of the poor also black? Why is it that a predominantly black city was not able to care for its majority population?

Consider these Questions Number 26 and 27, if you like, but I really think they are contained adequately enough withing Questions 1-24. And they have been dismissed as conspiracy-mongering, and innacurately so.

I'll express some disappointment that Etan Thomas' eloquence fell deaf on the ears of most people here - in truth, I think I did add little more to this discussion than simply a dispute over "one word."

Here are a few more words, from Monday's Washington Post

9th Ward: History, Yes, but a Future?

Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, October 3, 2005; A01

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 2 -- No one here wants to say it aloud, but one day soon the bulldozers will come, shoving away big hunks of a neighborhood known for its poverty and its artists, its bad luck and its bounce-back resilience.

It is likely to be the largest demolition of a community in modern U.S. history -- destruction begun by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and finished by heavy machinery. On Saturday, firefighters put red tags on hundreds of homes deemed "unsafe," the first step in a wrenching debate over whether the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt or whether, as some suggest, it should revert to its natural state: swamp.

A neighborhood tucked into a deep depression between two canals, railroad tracks and the Mississippi River, New Orleans's Lower Ninth has spent more of the past five weeks underwater than dry. Entire houses knocked off foundations. Barbershops and corner groceries flattened. Cars tossed inside living rooms. What remains is coated in muck -- a crusty layer of canal water, sewage and dirt. Mold is rapidly devouring interiors.

The question now is whether the Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated 40 years ago by Hurricane Betsy, should be resuscitated again. The debate, as fervent as any facing post-hurricane New Orleans, will test this city's mettle and is sure to expose tensions over race, poverty and political power. The people willing to let the Lower Ninth fade away hew to a pragmatist's bottom line; the ones who want it to stay talk of culture and tradition.

The flooded sections "should not be put back in the real estate market," said Craig E. Colten, a geography professor at Louisiana State University. "I realize it will be an insult [to former residents], but it would be a far bigger insult to put them back in harm's way."

The notion is not without precedent. In the 1800s, cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago rebuilt on filled-in marsh. More recently, the federal government has paid to relocate homes destroyed by the Mississippi River floods of 1993; the Northridge, Calif., earthquake; and the Love Canal environmental disaster in Upstate New York.

But never on the scale being contemplated here. And never in a predominantly black, low-income community already smarting from previous wrongs, perceived or real.

A little more ...

Originally a cypress swamp, the community of 20,000 is overwhelmingly black; more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line, according to the 2000 census. The people of the Lower Ninth are the maids, bellhops and busboys who care for New Orleans tourists. They are also the clerks and cops now helping to get the city back on its feet. The ward is home to carpenters, sculptors, musicians and retirees. Fats Domino still has a house in the Lower Ninth. Kermit Ruffins -- a quintessential New Orleanian trumpeter whose band likes to grill up some barbecue between sets -- attended local schools. About half the houses are rentals.

"It's a scrappy place where people don't take a lot of guff, but a place where people really respect each other," said Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association. "It has heart and soul and beauty."

Okay, I'll go back the "single word" which people think I am citing unfairly, and I'll say it one more time : No, not random.

And Questions 1-24 deserve to be addressed, not dismissed.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Pligganease]

Truthfully, I can buy the whole conspiracy thing.

I don't think it was racially motivated, though. I think that it would be more motivated by removing the members of that community that were creating crime problems. It just so happens that the majority of the people in NO who were prone to crime and criminal activities lived and operated in the 9th Ward.

You can't possible believe that no one sat back after all of this and said, "You know what? We have carte blanche to rebuild NO into a perfect resort city. The slums were demolished and the criminals were shipped out of town."

It's either a big time coincidence, or a planned act of sabotage.

[The Bobster]

[joe_doufu]

What a pointless flame war. I can't even figure out who is on the side of whom. All I can tell from a cursory skim is that The Bobster is an idiot.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Pligganease]

[The Bobster]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TheUrbanMyth]

Here is a very interesting article that answers several questions in the OP.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/9/12/210912.shtml

[TheUrbanMyth]

As the Wall Street Journal points out a major share of the blame rests with New Orleans itself, not the current or past administration. A number of questions raised in the OP are put to rest by reading the article which references the Wall Street Journal as its source.

[igotthisguitar]