Katrina

I am fortunate enough to have friends that I can argue with. That’s important because without friends you can argue with, you end up testing out your most fundamental confusions on people who DON’T like you. Which means they never point out the flaws in your argument. They “just” try to use them against you.Which brings me to Katrina. Between covering the sad but so completely overwrought saga of JonBenet Ramsey, “the media” has managed to remember that America’s largest single natural disaster happened one year ago this week.And it’s “this week” because it wasn’t a tragedy that struck on a Tuesday morning, and stays seared in your brain like 9/11. Katrina was the disaster that went on too long, like a first novel by a second-rate writer. Long after the story should have been reaching its conclusion, more chapters were being added and the plot wasn’t getting thicker, it was getting murkier and sadder. So, I’ve found myself discussing and debating hurricane Katrina and its aftermath with my friend. She’s white, and doesn’t understand why I see the storm and its aftermath in terms of “race,” a moniker I detest when discussing politics, primarily because it doesn’t mean anything. I’ll come back to that later.The dichotomy of our opinions is pretty simple. We agree that the government demonstrated incompetence in its response to the needs of the people at the local, state, and federal level. Where we part company is the question of why.To me, it’s painfully obvious that it was a combination of apathy and arrogance that led to the Constitutionally-elected executive branch of the federal government not noticing, or collecting the data that would have allowed them to fulfill their Constitutional obligation … specifically the insuring of domestic tranquility, part of the “reason” given for forming a nation in the first place. I believe that apathy has been their standard response to the specific plight of poor people. I believe this has particularly been true of those they could subcategorize as minority, and that this springs from an unexposed view that minorities actually have MORE opportunity thanks to post civil rights legislation. Therefore, those who haven’t managed to succeed have no one to blame but themselves, and as a result should be all but ignored by those who have. They are obviously inferior in some way, or just too lazy to take what has been offered.I believe the arrogance is a by-product of an irresponsible life of privilege. I have no firsthand knowledge about being wealthy, and I suspect that I am guilty of the same apathy toward the problems of the rich that I accuse them of exhibiting toward the poor. The relevant difference is that I am not tasked with their protection, nor do I seek to gain from their loss. The responsibly rich understand that their wealth comes with strings. One of those strings is an obligation to use a portion of their time, money, and power in pursuits to help the less fortunate. The government recognizes this and codified it as a desirable trait by making charity tax deductible. In fact, it is actually DIFFICULT in America to be wealthy WITHOUT declaring part of your assets toward a “charitable” cause. If you try, the government will literally TAKE most of your money away. Without that government insistence on philanthropy of some kind, I suppose the stick in this equation is that if you don’t, and the transgression is great enough, history tells us that the poor will eventually tear down your gates, take your shit, and probably behead you.I’ve always admired the responsibly rich and poor equally. Every group of poor people counts among its numbers many who work hard, play by the rules, and raise responsible families that pride themselves on taking as little from the public dole as possible. These are the people who show up at their jobs on time every day in exchange for a wage they cannot be expected to survive on, and serve as the fuel for the national economy. But there are despicable extremes among both rich AND poor. In action, the despicable, regardless of class, are users. They seek the next handout with religious fervor, and waste tremendous amounts of brainpower developing new ways to game loopholes of the system. They use their despicableness as capital for crime, laziness, and selfishness. Faced with poverty, they become stick-up kids. Faced with extreme wealth, they become board members of Enron … or vacation as a city drowns. They have no concern for how their behavior affects others. They are the picture of arrogance … and apathy. For me, Katrina ripped the façade off the face of despicable America. The poor became looters, the rich kicked off another game of “it’s not my fault” … version two of The Blame Game. And America watched as thousands of people were victimized by criminals in their midst as they waited for other criminals to come to their aid. Millions were displaced, thousands suffered, and hundreds died.And the world watched as more Americans with dark skin than have ever made an appearance on daytime television begged the cameras for food, water, medicine, and help.My friend doesn’t see the race issue. I can’t blame her, but I understand why. I believe it is a question of heritage.Heritage is the substance that is passed down from generation to generation around the dinner table. It’s the knowledge you have that isn’t written anywhere, but know as surely as your multiplication tables. It’s the beliefs you have in common with your grandparents, even though you vote for different political parties. It’s the feeling you get when you see symbols that you realize are a façade.I look at television footage for a living. I’ve learned to believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture is worth a million, and a moving picture with sound … is priceless.To my friend, I share this simple explanation of why I see “heritage” when I look at footage of Katrina:The way the event played out, hit a very raw, sensitive, and exposed nerve in the “black” psyche that we’re still not “part of the country.”As a group with shared heritage, we don’t have the language to describe what we feel. We just perceive it the same way. I cannot speak to the “fact” of it. I can only speak to its “truth.” All these “black” people are not saying the same things simply to piss “white” America off. We say it because we believe it. We say it because we feel it. We say it because we know it. On some level, it doesn’t even matter any more whether it’s “true” or not. Katrina will become a chapter in the unwritten book of our heritage like the Tuskegee Experiments, like the Tulsa burning of 1921, and like the need to be “twice as good to get half as far.”To the poor and displaced people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida … I wish you the blessing of Job. After learning he’d lost everything in a matter of minutes, his story is about trial and tribulation. But it ends with him gaining a double portion of his material possessions. (His children are also replaced, which is kind of weird, but that’s another topic for another day.)Peace,--Stew. (P.S. Knucklehead, I hope you're ok. If you see this, let me know that you are.)

(29 August 06)