Posted on 09/03/2005 2:34:53 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Black Democrats in Congress and civil rights leaders yesterday accused the Bush administration of incompetence and a lack of compassion for blacks in response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"Many of these Americans who now are struggling to survive are Americans of color," Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, said. "Their cries for assistance confront America with a test of our moral compass as a nation."
He quoted the admonition of Christ to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and said: "To the president of the United States, I simply say that God cannot be pleased with our response."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the highest-ranking black member of the administration, rejected the suggestion of racism in the government's response.
"That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help and who not to help -- I just don't believe it," she said. "Americans are generous to each other, and I think you're seeing that people are opening their homes to people who are displaced and have had to be evacuated."
Black leaders at a press conference in Washington criticized news coverage they said has depicted blacks in New Orleans as looters and refugees.
"We cannot allow ourselves to see only the black faces doing the looting and not see the homeowners, the families, the children who have lost everything," said Dorothy I. Height, president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women.
Mr. Cummings objected to the use of the term "refugees," which news organizations have applied to both whites and blacks left homeless by the storm. Dictionaries typically define "refugee" as "one who flees for safety, especially to a foreign country."
"I hate the term refugees," he said. "Americans are dying, not refugees. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
While many are blaming city, state and federal leaders for the mess in New Orleans, the former hostages tend to be kinder - and more ashamed of what members of their community did.
In part, Willie Jenkins said, the suffering was a result of the pride and stubbornness of New Orleans citizens. Partly, he blames the neighborhood toughs who saw the storm as the chance to briefly seize power.
He hopes, he said, that people elsewhere in the United States recognize that most of those left homeless by Katrina are hard-working family people who happen to live in a poor neighborhood. They should not, he pointed out, be confused with the thugs.
"But," he added sadly, "I guess everybody is lumped together, the good and the bad."
Others tried to stay cheerful on the hot asphalt yesterday.
"We're dirty, we're hungry, nothing is going right for us," said Rebecca Doucette. Then she paused as she dug her brown plastic spoon into the sack containing her military ration and smiled. "But it will." ***
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1476271/posts
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.kane03sep03,1,2969794.column?coll=bal-home-columnists
Two photos pose puzzle: When is it not looting?
***........So the black kid "looted" a grocery store. The white couple "found" their goods.
Quite a few black folks - not all of them prone to a knee-jerk charge of white racism -noticed the difference. Internet chat rooms were soon abuzz with debate about whether race was a factor in the way the two captions were phrased.
To determine that, we have to look closely at the circumstances under which the photos were taken and discern the differences. And the first difference in the captions is that, whatever sins AFP/Getty committed, its writers at least correctly hyphenated the compound modifier "chest-deep." (We journalists can be a nit-picking lot.)
The second difference was noted by AFP/Getty photographer Chris Graythen - who took the photo of the white couple - in Jim Romenesko's online column at the Poynter Institute Web site.
"I believed in my opinion that they did simply find them," said Graythen. "The people were swimming in chest-deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. There were a million items floating in the water. We were near a grocery store that had five-plus feet of water in it. It had no doors. The water was moving and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and Cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow."
That sounds like a reasonable and cogent defense of why AFP/Getty editors went with the caption they chose. But then the muckety-mucks at AFP/Getty shot themselves in the foot: they asked Yahoo and other news services to yank the offending picture from their databases. Yahoo complied. But that prompts the question: If there was nothing wrong with the photo or the caption, why pull them?
One clue: AFP stands for Agence France-Presse. You figure an operation run by the French - the same folks who have made cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal an international cause celebre - would wimp out to political correctness.
That being said, we must return to the young black man who "looted" the grocery store, as opposed to just "finding" something floating out of it. Mind you, this lad wasn't one of the idiots looting television sets. (Those poor souls apparently forgot that you can't eat a television set and that there's no electricity to power one.) .........***
A cry in the black education wilderness [LINKS to stories]
You must be joking.
CHECK IT OUT:
They have faith they can feed thousands - Religious groups launch effort in Houston
Well... in a perfect world. :D
They're politicans first (well maybe second after scum) and blacks second (or third).
Thank you for the graphic!
Your very welcome
When I see people throwing bricks through windows and carting off goods that were locked behind the window...that constitutes looting. Since the majority of people who stayed in New Orleans were black...it stands to reason the majority of people being filmed by the media would be black.
Until survivors of the catastrophe arrive in another location seeking refuge they are simply survivors. Once they depart their original location they become refugees.
It seems the race baiters are out early and in great numbers, as usual, and once again the American people are treated to their venom and hate as they seek to represent those who obviously can't possibly be the recipients of anything but prejudice or bigotry. What a load of BS!
Al Queda must laff they're arses off that our owm MSM does alot of their dirty work for them, causing this inner turmoil.
Bump!
Why even respond to such nonsense? With every accusation they are admitting that New Orleans had no government to start with and it was "Bush's fault." The truth will come out eventually.
***....Islamic extremists rejoiced, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that ''Private'' Katrina had joined the global jihad. ....***
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475418/posts
They keep it up and there will be a huge backlash.
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