I’m not sure what I would do in the same situation.. I guess I would heavily rely on our fellow citizens to take care of us, which I hope is what will happen for all of those people. It’s amazing to look at the demographics now, when originally the city was about 28% white, 67% black. After the storm, all the people left standing around waiting for a bus to come are the poor black families who didn’t have cars to evacuate with in the beginning. I don’t know why it’s taking so long for the gov’t. to get to them, it’s a bit disconcerting… aren’t we supposed to be prepared to react to situations like this? Seems like that qualifies as homeland security to me… I know I’m being cynical, but it’s hard not to be.
I just keep hearing about all the failures that made this whole thing worse than it had to be. And they (popular media) keep focusing on the looting as if stolen TVs are more important than people dying on their rooftops.. if the white people take something from Walmart, it’s out of survival, but if black people do it, it’s selfish looting. Maybe they should think about why these people are so desperate in the first place? Perhaps because almost 13% of our country lives in poverty? Hmm, no correlation.
At least our great leader so selflessly came back from his record-long vacation to “deal” with this. Even if his definition of deal means pointing out the obvious to everyone and acting like he’s really hurt, as if he suddenly grew the ability to feel. I recommend reading a great op-ed in the NY Times today, called “Waiting for a Leader”.
I hope this rich nation puts its money where its mouth is for once.
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