Help, Straighten Me Out

“. . . six in 10 blacks interviewed said the federal government was slow in rescuing those stranded in New Orleans after Katrina because many of the people in the Louisiana city were black. But only about one in eight white respondents shared that view.

The numbers were similar on whether the rescues were slower because the victims were poor, with 63 percent of blacks blaming poverty and 21 percent of whites doing so.”

-Reporting the results of a gallup poll taken September 8-11, 2005. CNN.com, Tuesday, September 13, 2005


Have you ever been down in the ghetto?
Have you ever felt that cold wind blow?
If you don’t know what I mean
Won’t you stand up and scream
‘Cause there’s things goin’ on that you don’t know

-Lynyrd Skynyrd, Things Goin’ On


“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”

-Barbara Bush, speaking about Katrina evacuees living in the Houston Astrodome. Marketplace, September 5, 2005


We’ve all seen the man at the liquor store, beggin’ for your change
The hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked and full of mange
He asked the man for what he could spare with shame in his eyes
“Get a job, you fuckin’ slob,” was all he replied
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to sing the blues

-Everlast, What It’s Like


“For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.”

- Deuteronomy 15:11, King James Version


In this dirty old part of the city
where the sun refuse to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in trying

Now, my girl, you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true,
You'll be dead before your time is due (I know)

Watch my daddy in bed and dying
Watch his hair been turning grey
He's been working and slaving his life away (Oh yes I know)
He's been working so hard
I've been working too, baby (every night and day)

We've gotta get out of this place
if it's the last thing we ever do
We've gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you

-The Animals, We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place


Reporter: “Can I ask you why you don’t want to stay?”

Evacuee: “Why I’m not staying? ‘Cause look how far we is out here. Look at, look at, just look around you, and you’ll see, yourself. Ain’t no good environment, Mexicans and all them kind of people around here.”

Reporter, to radio audience: “It’s hard to miss the fact that some of the same people who were complaining the loudest about discrimination . . . were the quickest to say they didn’t want to live around ‘a bunch of Mexicans.’”

- Conversation between a reporter and a black Katrina evacuee regarding apartments offered as free housing in Houston. This American Life, September 16, 2005


Ain't no different
Than in South Africa
Over here they'll go after ya to steal your soul
Like over there they stole our gold
Yo they say the Black don't know how to act
'Cause we're waitin' for the big payback
But we know it'll never come
That's why I say come and get some
Why when the Black move in, Jack move out
Come to stay Jack moves away
Ain't we all people?
How the hell can a color be no good for a neighborhood
Help, straighten me out

-Public Enemy, Who Stole the Soul?


Whether or not you view the delay in rescue efforts after Katrina as racist, you may have been appalled by the instances of individual racism that were caught on video or audiotape being committed by evacuees, rescuers and others in the past weeks.

I'm not wealthy; on the contrary, it wouldn't take much of a crisis to put me on the street, yet it took an absurdly lengthy amount of time for me to understand that most of the people who didn't evacuate prior to Katrina weren't there by choice, but by financial circumstance.

It was only several weeks after the storm that I discovered that those stranded in the aftermath were actually prevented, at gunpoint, from leaving a city which had no water, food, shelter or clothing, by National Guardsmen, who were protecting property just outside of New Orleans. Property over innocent American lives.

I don't even know how to begin to solve these huge problems.