As a graduate of Tulane who spent nearly 3 years in NOLA, the scenes if chaos this week didn't surprise me all that much. When you arrive for orientation as a new student, they give you a packet telling you that you're pretty much risking your LIFE if you drive into a project. A Tulane student is murdered just about every year, or at least that was the case in the 90's. Don't leave so much as a dollar BILL showing in your car, or it will be broken into. The crime, not to mention the squalor, of the projects - is mind boggling for students from suburbian America.
The poorest residents of NOLA basically just brought that level of chaos to the Superdome, as well as the city at large, after the flood. That certainly doesn't mean there weren't some heros in the bunch - people of character, like Jabbar Gibson, the young guy who stole the school bus and took a boatload of people to Houston. I met many wonderful black people in New Orleans, many of whom might have lived in those poor areas - but the sad fact is, the culture itself of the lower classes in that city is very scary, and the projects are absolutely frightening dens of drugs and murder (the city erected a huge billboard by 1 that said "though shalt not kill" - I guess to help remind them!)
Tucker Carlson is one of the only guys I've heard actually call it like it is when talking to Al Sharpton, arguing against the whole race card thing - saying something about how it's so obvious a fact that the poor don't have life as easy as the rich, that you don't even need to STATE it - "that's why nobody wants to BE poor!" - but as this article pinpoints, it's beyond just the culture of poverty we're seeing this week - it's a culture of EXPECTATION. Yeah I'm poor, my survival skills are minimal, and the government damn well better SAVE me, NOW.
I felt awful for the people of New Orleans as I watched this disaster - which was beyond just forseeable - the damn scenario was nearly charted to a tee by researchers and published in the Times Pic several years ago - but I wasn't all that empathetic to the people screeching at the top of their lungs that the government should have been delivering water, diapers, and food - to each and every citizen - a couple of days after the tragedy struck. I live in Anchorage - and if we get a 9.0 earthquake tomorrow - I'm not going to just wander downtown and scream "where's my WATER!!" and wait for the Feds to drop it in to me.
Something is scarily wrong when that big a group of people thinks that after a natural disaster, food and water should be at their feet within 24 hours. Open a history book, for &*#@*(% sake.
The media is ignoring everything from the incredible obesity problem, to the other problems these projects already HAD - in favor of trashing Bush, FEMA, and other officials (who I'm not saying did everything right - not by any means). We need to take a hard look at poverty in this country - and the culture that goes along with it. Does anybody ever remember seeing groups of 250 lb Indonesians angrily screaming "we need HELP!" after the tsunami?
Your post is right on and well said. Thank you. I almost wanted to scream at some woman that Fox interviewed who was spitting out a MRE and saying that she wouldn't eat anything like that after she supposedly had gone three days without food. If MREs are good enough for our brave soldiers then it's good enough for a welfare recipient.
This article and your response have said all there is to say. To bad that those who are most in need of reading them never will.
They don't know what a history book is!
Best post I've read all day..and this article was the best one I've read all weekend. When the rescue operation is over, ALL aspects better be on the table for coping with the next inevitable disaster, including reducing the dependency on the government to provide.
One of my friends who was stuck in New Orleans managed to get a group of people together and decided to escape from Mid-City. They took a shopping cart from one of the Wal-Marts whose goods were liberated and redistributed to an eager public, filled it full of food, water, and their personal effects (including several cats, and started on their way out).
On the way they saw uniformed cops robbing stores at gunpoint for steroes and other nonessentials, gang members driving by and spraying anyone unlucky enough to be on the streets with automatic fire, and the corpse of an elderly customer of hers(beaten to death with bricks) piled among about a dozen others. I can't even begin to imagine what other kind of horrifying encounters they had, and frankly, do not want to.
Although they nearly died several times throughout their exodus, they managed to make it to Laplace (a town 30 mi away) with everyone still alive. I am amazed by the harrowing things they have encountered and how they managed to overcome them in order to survive.
I guess my point is that even if the news does seem eager to point out 250-lb whiners who bitch at the fact that they've had nothing but water and MREs for the past two or three days, there are some real heroes to come out of this crisis with not only good convictions but the will and courage to follow through on them. Pity that the presence of so much evil threatens to overshadow their accomplishments. I, for one, am in awe.
Nerdgirl, as a graduate of LSUSD in 1976 I fully agree with you. Before moving to NOLA I grew up in Baton Rouge. When I retired from the USAF the last place I wanted to move was back to south LA. Interestingly enough I ended up just a few miles up the road from you in Wasilla, Alaska.
Over the years I have had the chance to go to NOLA for professional meetings and most of the time I passed. The last time I went was in 1998 for a meeting at the convention center. Though the food was incredible as always the city was even more filthy and dangerous than I remembered. THis article has finally spoken that which cannot be spoken and I for one think it ought to be shouted from the rooftops.