I have a confession to make: I should have had this post finished days ago. For reasons I still can’t fathom, I found this to be the hardest piece I’ve ever written. Although I wrote pages upon pages of of text, I was just frustrated; unable to find rhyme or reason, structure or theme.
“Can’t you see it, can’t you feel it
It’s all in the air
I can’t stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer ” (Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn”)
Come Sunday morning–and out of nowhere–I finally broke down and cried. I didn’t “feel emotional” or tear up or weep. I cried. The enormity of it all was just too much.
My heart has never felt such sorrow: The people who were trapped in the Superdome and upon their rooftops. The anguish of Harvey Jackson , who tried to hold onto his wife in the midst of the storm.
And my very being has never known so much fury as I watched in helpless horror that these people–these taxpaying American citizens, NOT refugees–were being left to die. (BTW, damn all the statistics and stereotypes–I’ve never seen so many images of Black men holding their babies and caring for weakened elders when they were tired, sick and feeling weak themselves. I almost never see that portrayed on television. But I digress.)
To be Black is to be despised, no matter how well this society has cloaked it in recent years. You learn how to deal and move on. But never have I seen such brutal confirmation of that disgust and hate than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. How to write, how to think, how to act–indeed how to function, when your government spits on you?
This government just stood by and watched thousands of us die. That actually makes it sound more benign than it was: Michael Brown–the former horse head, (or is that horse’s ass) of FEMA and Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff were apparently the only two people on the planet who didn’t know of the living hell American citizens were going through at the Superdome and the Convention Center. President Halliburton had other priorities, fly fishing in Wyoming and estate hunting in Maryland. And Shrub? Well, we can’t disturb the emperor’s golf game, now can we?
You know your government has failed when Harry Connick, Jr. arrives at the scene of a disaster before FEMA does.
Rats die with more dignity than this.
This just in while your government looks for a war to win
Flames from the blame game, names? Where do I begin?
Walls closing in get some help to my kin
Who cares? While the rest of the Bushnation stares (Chuck D, “Hell No We Ain’t Alright”)
A six-year old, quite literally, demonstrated more leadership than George Bush. People literally dropped dead, while Shrub did nothing but mouth phony platitudes about law and order and “help is on the way” on his first take. After his performance proved to be lackluster, the White House went into rapid response, presumably instructing Shrub to emote earnestly with the hoi polloi on his do-over.
This damned sure ain’t Florida.
Because if it was, Bush wouldn’t have dithered. In fact, if the Hurricane evacuees were Terri Schiavo (how’s that for proving that in this country, one white person’s life is worth more than 10,000 Blacks), he’d have been hurried back from one of his many vacations. Since this was a real crisis, as opposed to an imagined one, Shrub was no where to be found.
But this was New Orleans. He’s partied there to be sure, but hey … those people don’t write checks. They are not his base. They probably vote Democratic–if they vote at all. So their lives aren’t worth his time.
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer (“Mississippi Goddam”)
Even in the midst of human suffering on a scale unseen in this country, Shrub never missed an opportunity to pander. Who said he can’t multi-task?
“Zero tolerance” and “shoot to kill” orders for looting? Of course my first thought–so this filthy Administration wants to commit mass suicide?–soon gave way to the obvious racist subtext.
And this was southern bipartisanship at its best. Well they will be dealt w/ “ruthlessly”, said former RNC head and Gov. Haley Barbour.”
“These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will.” said Gov. Blanco.
Yes … let’s get in touch with folks’ latent plantation fantasies (Race? Perish the thought!) and focus on the one percent of those looting, as opposed to trying to find food–water-logged property, of course, meaning more than the suffering of men, women and children. That’s just criminal.
And this administration knows from criminal, as the five year economic smash and grab proceeds apace: unaccounted billions going to Halliburton; propaganda cash to willing stenographers; money to fix aging infrastructure–say, for example, levees–gone down a shithole in Iraq. We’re spending billions per day for Saddam’s non-existent WMDs as we install an Islamic republic in Iraq. They sure are doing a “heck of a job” as they brazenly loot our federal treasury.
But the face of this tragedy was overwhelmingly Black and poor–a combination in this country as poisonous as the toxic floodwaters in New Orleans–and therefore not worthy of sympathy. We just don’t care. And maybe God did us a favor. Urban renewal by natural disaster, perhaps?
We better look/ what’s really important
Under this sun especially if you over 21
This ain’t no TV show/ this ain’t no video
This is really real/ beyond them same ole “keep it real” (“Hell No We Ain’t Alright”)
I just can’t find the words to register the disgust I feel toward these moral midgets. It’s no surprise then, that many Black folks agreed with Kanye West’s primetime, kept-it-real statement, tut-tutting from Condeleeza Rice (and later from his legal wife) notwithstanding. If anything, West forgot to add “poor” and “working class” last week when he said that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” Why would he care about the help and the cannon fodder–of any color? If anything, West said what many have long known.
Indeed, the Black community is mad –and mobilized. Tom Joyner is mobilizing by radio. Black churches are linking with other churches and doing everything from packing supplies and driving to Louisiana to finding homes for evacuees. All manner of civic, political, fraternal and social organizations are working together to give aid to the survivors. Countless individuals are giving of themselves by offering help and sometimes their own homes. And I’m sure next week’s 35th annual CBC Annual Legislative Conference starting Sept. 21st won’t be business (some say partying) as usual.
But our activity today won’t make us less accountable in our own complicity to the question of poverty in the community and our commitment to the have-nots, too. We’re going to have question the Rev. Dr. Greedygut theology of “blab it and grab it”–turning the concept of “having life and living it more abundantly” on its head and morphing into the belief that the favor God shows is in direct proportion to how much money you have. We’re going to have question the “I got mine” mentality. We’re going to have question whether we’re going to continue the 21st century minstrel show that is corporate hip hop whose stars wallow in materialism and when they get bored, revels in misogyny. This has to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Even before the curtain comes down on the minstrel show, George W. Bush must finally do something he’s never done before: be accountable. Forget the fact that people died–he clearly doesn’t give a damn–this is an issue of national security. The region is one of the largest ports in the world, home to one-third of our domestic oil production, not to mention sugar, rice, poultry and seafood, and there’s no plan? That seems to especially spite the national face.
I find breathtaking that this 50 something year old “man” is still unable to be accountable for ANYTHING he does. He’s the same coddled, spoiled brat he’s always been. Well, I don’t care that his parents don’t like criticism of their precious little boy; he is going to be held accountable, for once.
(Speaking of Babs, she’s just as arrogant as her stupid brat, chuckling about the lucky duckies in Houston. How worthless can you be when you can’t even manage to do noblesse oblige correctly? The apple, indeed, doesn’t fall far from the tree–and they’re both rotten to the core.)
So, to play the part of Our Strong Leader Shrub plans to conduct an inquiry as to what happened–that is, to see if something actually didn’t go right. That’s right–he wants to investigate himself.
And OJ is looking for the real killer.
Son of a Bush, how you gonna trust that cat?
To fix shit when help is stuck in Iraq? (“Hell No We Ain’t Alright”)
It’s too late for Shrub to be photographed with the help, or hug a Black child. No donning of compassionate drag can cloak the massive failure of the federal government, of cretins who WANT the federal government to fail. They seem to think that if thousands die and industries are ill-affected (not to mention the environmental devastation) so what–gotta crack some eggs to make an omelet. Their reason for being, now that they’ve weakened government, is to take the spoils. Talk about looting.
He and his horrible administration are the sorry symbols of crony capitalism, rapacious greed, malign neglect–and the aftermath of the hurricane is but one consequence. No moral being golfs while thousands die and then hides behind his parents and assorted bootlickers when called on his actions. And no phony, camera-ready act of contrition (like the spectacle we’ll surely see on Thursday’s primetime performance) will suffice.
Hell no, we ain’t alright. But, by God, we will be.