If it had been them;
Of Hurricane Katrina and a spiritual way
A complaint of race, class, and age discrimination before the world and God
The handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina answered the question most often asked by Black people regarding the issue of race in this country. There were no convenient excuses, no denials en masse, no red herrings to hide behind. The facts were pure, they simple, they were discriminatory. Were God the arbiter, the federal government, the defendant, and African America the plaintiff, then a decision would be reached without an opening statement from the defense.
If it had been white folks..
You see, there is simply no denying that aide came quickly to the victims in predominately white areas; to survivors in Biloxi Mississippi to survivors in Mobile Alabama. Purely and simply. White folks were not reduced to defecating in near proximity to their place of rest as those thousands upon thousands of black folks were forced to inside the Superdome and at the convention center. The white folks in those places were not forced to die while awaiting aide. Yes, there were elderly and poor white folks who did die awaiting aide in New Orleans, but their misfortune began and ended with one simple fact, they were unlucky enough to be left with the people who are and have been the descendants of slaves in this country, the people who had to fight to be recognized as human beings in this country, the people who only another century ago were three fifths a person.
The stench of the dying in the streets of New Orleans.
The stench of excrement.
The stench of societal neglect coming from Washington.
In my home, as I watched them cry, watched them dying, watched their pain, I knew what they did.
Historically, we have been forced to force the rich and powerful and white in this country to share the all too important resources of this the wealthiest country in the world through the strength of truth, of a moral imperative bourn of the spirit beyond this world.
They knew.
As they watched corpses float by, as they watched the alive die,
They knew.
(Did you witness video of the woman begging for help as she cried and cleaned, saying that she had never robbed or hurt any one in her life?)
(Do you know by now that the funds meant to fix the levees long before Katrina flooded her home were sent to Iraq?)
And all of us who have forgotten in light of the state of uncertainty in the world, of the fear and apprehension caused by and perpetuated by the Federal governments response to 9/11 brought to America were reminded. Will we remember? Will they? They did.
Three fifths of a human being.
In the heat of the New Orleans sun, in the humidity of the ever present moisture, in the weather eerily reminiscent of the Bight of Benin African Americans were duly re-informed of their status before those who consider themselves white before them. Before the very world we were all reminded of issues of race and class and age in this country in the most shocking, harrowing, disgusting, and infuriating means possible.
Make no mistake those conditions presented at the Superdome by the images beamed across the world were the same that the ancestors of African Americans felt at the auction block, aboard the slavers; with one difference-the ancestors were given water, were given food in small amounts, simply enough to keep them alive.
Three fifths of a human being.
Water! Food! Medicine!
And in Biloxi, they didn't have to wait for aide. It had arrived.
In Mobile, they didn't have to wait. It arrived.
In New Orleans, in a huge group of the representation of America's shame. They waited and died right in front of our eyes. On the nightly news. On the midnight news. On the early morning news. On the Midday news. They died and suffered.
I offer none of the apologies, none of the rationales, none of the idiocy which will be trotted out by America's spin machine. They will have enough of that. That is not what this is about. It is about the stark naked truth stripped of all of the balancing and hiding and manure of the bull of the Midwest plains.
God would not have it in his house.
Neighther should I, nor we.
No words could defend this.
We can give aide half a world away. We can spend billions of dollars in aide in another country. The president can go to war on his whim in the costliest war this country has known in my life time. But in New Orleans where the images begged the heart to break, begged the humanity that we all have what was the immediate answer? Biloxi, Mobile. The Ambassador to Spain. Those were the answers. And while it is difficult to quantify disaster and misfortune, New Orleans was clearly the hardest hit. The most disastrous. I thought triage meant helping the most affected, the most ill first? Except when?
The middle passage.
Oh, the stench.
The alive and the dead in the hot sun and humidity.
The Spanish ambassador.
Before the cameras, before the very people who have become America's barometer of humanity in the earliest moments of the twenty first century, in the earliest moments of the aftermath of the disaster, the race, class, and age discrimination case against the federal government was tried and judge. Troops swooped in, on camera surrounded the white and well heeled ambassador of Spain and escorted her and her white family out of the sea of poor and overwhelmingly black survivors in the early moments of recovery. Why were they not subjected to the days of inhumane conditions?
Why? Why?
I must ask myself so many questions. The constantly critical nature of my musings is the only thing which keeps me sane in this insanity. It is the ugliest of moments to peer into the depths of morass that can be on display in the actions of spiritually corrupt.
The Spanish Ambassador, the white Ambassador, did not have to wait in the filth and neglect even when she was amongst it.
God knows the answer despite the coming denials, in spite of the offered red herrings, in spite of all of the pleas to move past the most embarrassing displays of truth involving matters of race and class and age in this country as it begins the rest of tomorrow.
Is the money to be surely made by Haliburton and the Haliburton-esque and the vice president like worth all of this?
A phone call would have turned this around. One from one man. The commander in chief. Simple words. Three thousand troops there tomorrow. And the bring all the C-rations and water they can carry. War on a whim. The War Powers Act. But no response to the human condition?
"It's coming," he told them when they put the microphones and cameras in his face and asked him about New Orleans."We're ramping up."
In predominately white Biloxi, they didn't wait for it to come.
In predominately white Mobile, they didn't wait for it to come.
Is it a coincidence that they, less affected by the storm and aftermath received the aide first?
And the lovely Spanish Ambassador.
The middle passage for the rest. Death waiting upon aide for the rest. Starvation and hunger for the rest. America's historic treatment of inequitable sharing of the resources for the rest. No rest for the rest. Three fifths for the rest.
In a world of uncertain futures brought about by the increasing mad behavior of men who would be terrorists and the wrath of nature, I have often foreseen the behavior of the Federal Government which is on display before our eyes in New Orleans. It does not take much imagination, if you are black, in this country. Resources are given to those with the least next to last, in this country. Resources are given to those who are not white last in this country. And this is not about tax cuts for the rich. Human needs are met last for African Americans in this country. That is what is on display in New Orleans.
If it had been white folks, troops and aide would have appeared as they did for the Spanish ambassador and the predominately white Biloxi and Mobile. Period. We must say this because that is what happened.
What can be said in the face of such astronomically disgraceful behavior before our creator on this planet? Only that there can be no human absolution for the rich, the powerful, and those in command for their treatment of the rest.
What can be done by the rest? First we must forgive. Man failed. The representation of the richest and most powerful that the human race has upon this planet in this moment failed. But the rest most forgive. It is the Godly thing to do. Then the rest can only remember and never forget; for be warned, should this happen to them, they will tell us only that they learned from New Orleans as they save them, as they aide them Be not skeptical, only gracious and spiritually humane for the sake of those saved as you thank your Creator that human beings were saved. Simply know there is no need for skepticism, no need to wonder about truth and lies in what you will hear. The truth you learned with your very real eyes brought to you by cameras, by the wonder of twenty first century communication in the morning, afternoon, and in all too long nights of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.
Let us hope that they learned that triage on the basis of race, class, and age is not acceptable before The One. A person is valuable because God made him or her not because she is an ambassador or a survivor in a predominately white area. Let us hope they remember not their failing there before the world and are embarrassed into committing Godly actions, but that they remember the judgment and punishment before God that is sure to come; for embarrassment has never been and will never be enough or this what not have happened and they would not have answered the question before the world.
If that had been white folks..
Kamau Atem
Raleigh, NC
09/03/05
As I contemplate all these things and as the fear of a future dreamed of continues to play before me in this country.
