Spring Break
Hurricane Katrina brought out the best and worst
Dr. Barbara Reynolds, NNPA Columnist
Issue date: 9/8/05 Section: COVER
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Thank God we the people of the United States are better symbols of America than George W. Bush, who lounged around on his Texas ranch while fellow Americans, mothers, veterans, babies drowned in flood waters teeming with dead bodies and cried out for food, water and mercy.
Across America, the media, college students, churches, mayors, neighbors have come together to assist the victims of one of the worst disasters of our age. Celebrities like Celine Dion, Larry King, Magic Johnson, the Williams tennis stars, Oprah and radio mogul Kathy Hughes are all pledging big bucks.
They saw the photographs and videotape of the exhausted old, the pregnant mothers, the crying fathers, the lost, the weary and the abandoned and did what George Bush and his conservative friends, including the Christian Right, had so long refused to do. And that is to recognize that the people dying before our eyes were not just looters, or refugees, but Americans-- the poorest, the weakest and the most vulnerable.
Somehow George Bush was not moved to immediate action as when he rushed to the New York Twin Towers where stockbrokers and millionaires were among those killed by terrorists.
Despite the do-nothing composure of George Bush, most of the media and elected officials refrained from stating the obvious but rapper Kanye West and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did not bite their tongues. They said what many of us were thinking.
Does anyone really believe that George Bush would have allowed affluent Whites to suffer and go to their death pleading for help from their government? Would White Americans have been labeled refugees as if because of their helplessness, they no were no longer worthy of American citizenship?
Nagin, who is Black, also showed courage. At a time when Bush was congratulating his utterly dysfunctional FEMA Director Mike Brown and his other Republican buddies for their "great" work, Nagin broke loose and told the officials to stop holding press conference and get off their [butts] and stand with the people and bring them real help and not just empty promises. It was Brown who admitted that he had not known that there were thousands of people housed in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Across America, the media, college students, churches, mayors, neighbors have come together to assist the victims of one of the worst disasters of our age. Celebrities like Celine Dion, Larry King, Magic Johnson, the Williams tennis stars, Oprah and radio mogul Kathy Hughes are all pledging big bucks.
They saw the photographs and videotape of the exhausted old, the pregnant mothers, the crying fathers, the lost, the weary and the abandoned and did what George Bush and his conservative friends, including the Christian Right, had so long refused to do. And that is to recognize that the people dying before our eyes were not just looters, or refugees, but Americans-- the poorest, the weakest and the most vulnerable.
Somehow George Bush was not moved to immediate action as when he rushed to the New York Twin Towers where stockbrokers and millionaires were among those killed by terrorists.
Despite the do-nothing composure of George Bush, most of the media and elected officials refrained from stating the obvious but rapper Kanye West and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did not bite their tongues. They said what many of us were thinking.
Does anyone really believe that George Bush would have allowed affluent Whites to suffer and go to their death pleading for help from their government? Would White Americans have been labeled refugees as if because of their helplessness, they no were no longer worthy of American citizenship?
Nagin, who is Black, also showed courage. At a time when Bush was congratulating his utterly dysfunctional FEMA Director Mike Brown and his other Republican buddies for their "great" work, Nagin broke loose and told the officials to stop holding press conference and get off their [butts] and stand with the people and bring them real help and not just empty promises. It was Brown who admitted that he had not known that there were thousands of people housed in the New Orleans Convention Center.