True enough, and, frankly, neither should a wheelchair bound person in a public place.
Your equating two nonequivalent things, unless you wish to argue that simply being black makes one less intelligent or capable. There is literally no good reason to think in terms of race. It serves no purpose. A wheelchair is a tangible handicap. Race isn’t even real, but simply an artificial construct.
To argue in terms of race is to suffer from prejudice and to frame things improperly. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a Klansmen or a civil rights activist, you’re sharing, making decisions based on, and perpetuating a fallacy.
A case in point: It should be inherently obvious to even the most casual observer that the plight of people following Katrina has nothing to do with race. A wealthy black person would have had no trouble getting out of the city. A poor white person would have.
It should be clear that people suffered based on poverty not race.
Choosing to innacurately frame the argument in terms of race is simple prejudice and racism.
It’s a stupid argument since it’s completely unsupported by the facts.
No, they shouldn’t but they do - because while we are getting better, often times in public places someone has been thoughtless or inconsiderate, or (very rarely) deliberately decided to do something that will directly harm someone who’s wheelchair bound.
While it is nice to think the wheelchair bound person shouldn’t have to think about it in a public place, sometimes they do.
It is an artificial construct that has real consequences.
While in a more perfect world, I shouldn’t have to think about race, often tims people are rude, sometimes people are thoughtless, and more often than you realize or care to believe, people decide to do something directly harmful to me because of that artificial construct.
What I am comparing (not equating, comparing) is a situation that the people in the majority do not have to or bother to consider because they’re in the majority. Perhaps, instead of wheelchair access, I should have said “I don’t usually notice when a store is out of left-handed scissors.”
You are lucky if you never have to frame things in terms of race. Sometimes (not always, not as often as my parents would have at my age, but sometimes) I really do not have that choice. It is wrong for someone who is in the majority and/or surounded by people who are the same race to say that because they don’t have to face it, I must not be facing it either.
No, it is unsupported by what you consider to be casual observation. I have too much experience to rely on merely someone else’s “casual observation,” and history enough to tell me that race and poverty very well may be linked in this case and that needs to be explored.
As a casual observer, why do you believe the majority of people in that part of town were black and not wealthy or even poor whites? What would in your opinion cause such split in the population?
In point of fact, I have had issues related to race. As a young lad, I was raised in the Bronx and Gramps was a bigot cop. I was a minority as a white kid in High School.
I realize fully that people will try to frame things in racial terms. That doesn’t mean I have to go along with the fallacy
I have no doubt that race and poverty are linked in NOLA. It doesn’t matter. Confusing correllation with causation is still a fallacy.
For example, let us say I am a car thief. I steal high end sports cars like Porsches and Ferraris. Let us say that these cars are more often red than other cars.
You are an investigator trying to catch me. You notice that the cars I steal tend to be red. You see a link. “He tends to steal red cars,” you think. You warn people to protect their cars if they are red. You watch for suspicious behavior from people driving red cars. Perhaps you try to catch me, and you take an old beater of a red 1972 Nova and attempt to bait me with it.
You never catch me though.
You have presumed a causative link where there is only an incidental one. You have missed the point. I am not stealing red cars. I am stealing sportscars and those just happen to be more often red than other cars.
Similarly, implying racial motivations to Bush is equally fallacious.
The race of the people in question is incidental to their predicament. Their poverty is causative to their precidament.
You may argue that their race is causative to their poverty, and I would tend to agree with you but that doesn’t really apply to the current debate which is whether Bush’s motivations or lack thereof are based on race.
Perhaps, however if you’re a serial rapist that has a pathological desire for leggy blondes, and have in the past allowed women in blonde wigs to escape…you are not raping women who happen to be blonde; you are raping them because they are blonde and your underlying issues.
I don’t know what’s in the President’s heart, but something went horribly wrong in NO, from the Mayor on up. The OP is not the only person, regardless of race or social status that’s wondered whether or not, had NO been a different group of people whether or not the dynamic, the input from the media, and from the government would have been different.
The Daily Show had a reporter on that was in NO, and he wondered. He was there and noticed how those people were being treated and it wasn’t right. Was he playing to the crowd? I don’t know.
Seeing how the press protrayed those people, how the press segregated the coverage and the government’s response to it, hell even the government offiicals that are now visiting are making fliplant comments about those people. There’s a disconnect, whether it’s race or status I don’t know; but in the case of NO, hell the country itself; race is status.
I don’t know, reasonable people don’t know and that’s the tragedy; but unless you find video tape of Bush telling Brown to let those people drown, all you have is your gut.
Race (or being born as a member of the “wrong” race) has historically been a handicap. Two hundred years ago, it was the difference between being free and being slave. One hundred years ago, it was the difference between being a first-class citizen and being a third-class citizen. Fifty years ago, it was the difference between being carefree and optimistic and being constantly wary and cynical.
But in the year 2005, we’re all supposed to forget all of that? We’re also supposed to pretend that no legacy from this history exists, even though I can still see the effects of it in my parents’ angry eyes? Right-o.
The “race is not even real” meme–coined and perpetuated by well-intentioned progressives–is now being annexed by conservatives so they can beat people over the head with it whenever a discourse on racism is initiated. “Race is not even real,” they say, “so neither is racism. Neither is discrimination.” Then they take it to the next level. If we notice that race does in fact exist (in a social sense), then we are racists. We play the “race” card. We are a part of the problem.
Worse, these conservatives bring logic and rationality up as reasons why we should believe them. Real racists do not exist, they posit, because it would be illogical for people to discriminate nowadays. A bank isn’t going to treat a black customer any more differently than it would a white one because to a bank, money is money. A politician isn’t going to “not care” about a group of people because to a politician, a vote is a vote. Logic and rationality, folks, governs the behavior of TODAY. We are the Enlightened Age, you see.
So, the end result is that people who want to talk about racism are portrayed as divisive racists who can’t think rationally (“hysterical” is an adjective thrown about a lot). So no one wants to talk about it. Hell, even I didn’t want to at first. But this damn thread won’t go away and some of the comments in it are making me angry.
Let me say this: I don’t think Bush’s incompetent response was due to racism. And I’m willing to cut him even more slack and say that it was not to due classism either. But there’s no way anyone can convince me that his lack of compassion and sensitivity is born out of any other sentiment than “Those are not my people.” His people are a number of things, but they are not 1)black, 2)poor, and 3)Democratic leaning.*
Swap out any of those three things with traits of another demographic group and I strongly believe he would have conjured up more sympathy for those people, at least on camera. He was fine four years ago in Manhattan. But he shed crocodile tears this time, and everyone knows it. Trent Lott knows it. The men being patted on the back for work they hadn’t even done know it too.
Black people aren’t supposed to feel offended by that? It’s a shame when Geraldo Rivera, a slickster if there ever was one, can come out more of a champion than the president of our freakin’ country. It should have been Bush standing in the convention center, holding up babies with tears on his cheeks, calling for help.
Let me say this too: White people should not feel defensive at all. I don’t think Bush’s lack of compassion reflects on them, as a group, in any way. I’m grateful for the caring and loving people we have in this country. They are the salt of the earth–not the Republicans, not the Democrats, not the suit-wearing government officials who live for press conferences. Not the President and his incompetent cronies. This country would fall apart if it wasn’t for the people in the sewage-filled trenches. And they come in all colors.
(I know a lot of white people were victimized by this thing, but let’s face it: the media–unfortunately or not–has put a “black” face on this disaster.)
I not only agree with this, I said as much earlier this morning in a Pit thread, which I’ll cut and paste here.
"George Bush doesn’t hate my people: in fact, he loves him some rich black conservatives. But he is demonstrably indifferent to poor black Democrats and nonvoters. My suspicion is those people are a specific demographic that simply do not activate his Presidential radar. He does NOT do things to help them in their best interest. Point of fact: he is rescinding a pay act that would enable workers in the area to be paid a prevailing wage of $9 an hour. Which means with all the billions federal aid being pumped in the region, poor workers would be paid the least for their labor that gets much of the actual re-building done. This is just so typical of the kind of crap this man pulls it’s a wonder I’m not frothing at the mouth more. So it is not about race exclusively: it’s class and politics and race combined."
SO, What is the deal with race? The only people I see or hear bringing up race is the black community. You can go to any city in the world and find a poor neigborhood and they will blame thier life style on the president and/or government. When in fact, the way someone lives his/her life is soley based on how he/she was raised. If someone was raised in a poor neigborhood and their parent or parents didnt attempt to have something better for them, then they will most likely stay in that poor neigborhood. This is a long drawn out subject and it is far from what the real problem is in NOLA. My heart goes out to the people in NOLA but if they think it is a race thing, i would say grow up, get a job and move. The only person that can make it better for you is you. :wally
Well, and the police department in the New Orleans suburb that prevented black people from fleeing the city by the bridge across the Mississippi, ordering them back into the city and destroying shelters they had built on the New Orleans side of the bridge.
Since the conditions following the storm disproportionately harmed blacks in New Orleans, a place where there has long been a situation that disproportionately kept blacks in poverty, I think it is disingenuous to say that one sees no reason for their concern.
I will assume that the “you” in this sentence is a generic “you” and not aimed at a specific poster, because you will recall that the use of insults, even by means of an icon, is prohibited in Great Debates.
This hot topic thread has made it this far without falling into a personal pissing match. Please make sure that it stays at that higher level of discussion.
This is utter nonsense. The reason Geraldo was there and doing what he was doing is because it was his job to be there…. He was sent there by his employer to do specifically what he was doing.
If I, you, Bush or anyone who wasn’t a pathological monster would have been there talking to that mother I/you/they would have reacted the same way Geraldo did.
This whole disaster would have been significantly alleviated if the Mayor would have executed an effective evacuation and shelter plan; the Governor would have sent in the troops and given the Red Cross entry permission; And FEMA would have done what they were suppose to do.
Probably a chain of events that the bureaucracies couldn’t have pulled off in a billion years whether NO was populated by a herd of cocker spaniels or by a tribe of white millionaires.
Bush didn’t act that way, that’s the thing. We didn’t see him get teary-eyed. We didn’t see him slam his fist down on his desk in anger or frustration or resolve about the mess. No, his first soundbite about the whole thing was when he scolded the looters about “personal responsibility”. Ha! Imagine him giving anyone a goddamn lesson on personal responsibility.
No, when millions of Americans turned on the tube and saw their fellow Americans metaphorically and literally drowning, we got misty-eyed at first. Then we got angry. Bush couldn’t bring himself to fake it for us. He didn’t know how to decently respond until the nation criticized him first. He takes his cue from polls, from the press, from his handlers.
And this jerk is our leader.
Blame is not a zero-sum game. I can blame FEMA and Bush for their screw-ups while simultaneously blaming the mayor and the governor for theirs. But you see, the thing you Bush apologists keep forgetting (or maybe you don’t): Bush is accountable to all of us. My taxes do not pay the governor of Louisiana or the mayor of New Orleans. But they do pay for the DoHS and FEMA. They pay Bush’s salary. Therefore, most of my ire is directed at these folks. They are accountable to ME. They were supposed to be running shit and failed.
This was a national disaster in more ways than just one.
It’s fine and dandy to say that it doesn’t matter who was involved, the results would have turned out the same. And yet I don’t buy it. Hurricane after hurricane struck Florida last year and help arrived in a timely fashion. Hurricanes just as bad as Katrina have hit before and help arrived in a timely fashion. But that’s not really what pisses me off. What pisses me off is how Bush responded on an emotional level. Even the worst mistakes can be forgiven if an apology seems sincere enough. But the American people have been issued no apology, no admission of failure…only high-pitched assurances that everything happened as well as we could expect them to.
Not to invalidate your feelings, but this behavior is typical of Bush no matter what the situation. Any time he screws up, on anything, first he’ll deny responsibility, then, when pushed into a corner, and forced to admit that things have gone wrong, he simply has the attitude of “Oh well, shit happens, life goes on.” This attitude isn’t simply towards blacks, it’s pretty much towards everyone. And the reason FEMA failed is because it’s run by an incompetent, who padded his resume. Again, Bush’s fault, but I don’t think it’s racism.
Hell, look at his responce durring 9/11. A lot of white, wealthy business men must have gotten killed, and he still took his time responding to the situation.
I understand and that “you” IS a generic “you”. I try at all means to reframe from insults.
I speak so bluntly because, I am a paramedic for an ambulance service based in Lafayette, LA., and I was there in NOLA for the first four days post Katrina. I agree that the thousands lost, killed, injured and emotionally scared should have had a proper way out and that the mayor should have used his knowledge to help the people of NOLA. When I was there it was crazy, and continues to be crazy as this ill prepared disaster evacuation/response continues to claim more people’s lives and humanity. Although people were turned back and shelters destroyed, the black community was not the only group turned back. This lawless act did not happen only to the black community. While I was at the Super Dome, I witnessed blacks helping whites and whites helping blacks and that is the way it should be. I have seen a lot of stuff in my 14 years in emergency care, but this disaster tops it all. I care for everyone that needs help; I do not care about race, political status or class. Therefore, I feel the mayor should be held accountable, but did he do it because he didn’t like the black community, I would have to say no.
Talking about the long term effects of slavery is a different discussion than whether or not Bush has Screwed NOLA residents based on race.
The issues you bring up are larger than the scope of the debate. Not that I’ll ignore them, just wanted to point that out.
The two most common arguments pro and con to what you’ve said go like this:
(I’m paraphrashing arguments rather than making them, so don’t get pissed)
You weren’t alive 200 years ago, so you weren’t a victim of these crimes so you have no right complaining about them. The perpetrators of these crimes are no longer alive. There’s no point in living in the past, especially since you didn’t live there, so let it go and live for today. There’s not anything you can do about the past anyway.
The counterargument is: That’s a bunch of bullshit because the effects and inequities of the past continue to project themselves onto current circumstances in very real and tangible ways.
Ok, I’m done paraphrasing. Now my take:
There’s some merit in both arguments. Usually my response is that as a nation we’ve progressed to the point where it would serve everybody’s interest to stop worrying about the sins of the past, and to stop being concerned about them beyond being sure that they are not repeated on anybody.
But, NOLA is a very strange city. I lived there, and it’s different. I’ve walked down a street and had black people (older black people to be sure) step aside into the gutter to let me, a white man walk past.
I’ve lived in cities with slums and ghettos, but NOLA’s are in a different category. In NOLA the housing projects really are cages. There is no hope, no opportunity, no education, and, for the most part, no escape. With my own eyes I have seen cops accost black people, question them to see what their business was, and tell them to get their asses back to their neighborhoods since they had no business being where they were.
Race based discrimination and prejudice are very much alive and vital in NOLA to an extent I haven’t seen elsewhere including NYC.
What this has to do with the President’s actions I’m not sure. But, I didn’t want to gloss over your points simply because they didn’t apply.
Please be thoughtful before you going labelling conservative thought. I’d like to point out that Barry Goldwater, the father of modern Conservative thought is largely responsible for integrating the military in the 1950s. He was fighting for civil rights before the term was coined. Racism has no place in conservative thought in the way that I, and those I associate with apply it.
I agree with you that people use any weapon that comes to hand that serves their purposes. I know that racists can use the arguments you’ve suggested to perpetuate inequalities and serve a racist agenda.
This doesn’t mean that the arguments are without merit. One can use a correct arguement incorrectly, or to serve an incorrect end. I think that certain activists and those that do play the race card are a part of the problem. I don’t think it serves anybody’s ends to frame nonracial problems in racial terms. We both know that there is a race card and sometimes it gets played. I hope you don’t find that insensitive and rude for me to say that.
Yes, damn those conservatives always using logic and rationality to support their arguements! Bastards!
They do? I have never heard this argument from a conservative, or anybody for that matter? Can you give me an example, because I find it difficult to beleive that anybody is arguing that racism doesn’t exist.
Again, that’s not an argument I’ve heard made. Though, it is true to a degree. Technology and the impersonalization of commerce have reduced the possibility of racism in commerce to some degree. For example, Amazon.com or an ATM aren’t going to treat you differently if you’re black. Unless you have a distinctively black voice you’re not going to encounter racism over the telephone when you call to make reservations.
Of course, you will suffer racist interractions when dealing with individual racists. What I’m saying is that it does work both ways. Generally, I am not focussed on race. Once in a great while I have an interraction with somebody who is.
I’ll give you two examples: 1. I met a person new to the area and it turns out we went to the same high school and had a lot in common. I was being very nice to this person because he was a potentially valuable business contact. While talking about the Highs school he opined that there sure were a “lot of uppity niggers” back there.
Now, I’ll tell you honestly what my response was. I smiled, and changed the subject. I wasn’t offended or affronted. I just realized that I was dealing with an asshole, and I was surprised at the poor judgement such a man would exhibit to make such comments. I never did follow up. Not because he was a racist, but because he was stupid.
I’ve interviewed a lot of people for jobs. I interviewed a black man that told me that my industry and company did not have a very good track record on race, and wanted to know what steps we had taken, and whether race would be an issue in hiring him. I told him that neither me nor my company made decisions based on race, in accordance with the law. Again, in the interview he asked me more questions about race and discrimination.
Fortunately, a difficult decision was avoided since the man wasn’t qualified. Had he been, it would have been tough to recommend him. His race wasn’t a problem. His concern with race was. He was very racially sensitive and it seemed likely that he would view legitimate criticism or legitimate decisions that did not favor him as evidence of racism. That, is a bad spot to be in.
Both of these people had a problem. Race was an issue for them and it weakened them because they made it an issue for other people. In the vast majority of my dealings race is not an issue regardless of the race of the person I’m dealing with. It’s simply not germaine to the issue at hand.
Once in a while you run into people who make it an issue. They bring it into issues in which it is not germaine. I have equal disdain and discomfort in my dealings with such people whether they are bigots, or hypersensitve. Both cause discomfort by making an issue of race where it’s not an issue.
Your overgeneralizing. Sure some people use this logic to dismiss legitimate problems or pretend they don’t exist. By that same token some people do make issues of race and are divisive or hysterical about it.
Both types of people suck in my book.
You may have a point. We tend to sympathize based on our ability to identify. Bush may have trouble identifying with people with which he has little in common. Personally, I saw no evidence one way or the other. What did surprise me was Rumsfeld. I saw him congratulate and talk to a whole bunch of rescue workers (mostly white,) and then out of a group of several hundred evacuees, he picked the one white person in the group and shook his hand. Everybody else was ignored. It was uncomfortably noticeable.
I don’t know it. It might be true. I don’t know. With all respect, I don’t think you do, either. But, I might be wrong.
I don’t think so. Seriously. All you’ve done is make an assertion about what you “know.” You haven’t told me how you know it, or what evidence makes you believe it. Think about it. You really haven’t told me anything about Bush’s bleiefs with that statement. You’ve told me about your beleifs.
So no. I don’t think black people should be offended based on your unsubstantiated beliefs. Show me that Bush is a bigot and I’ll be pissed. Tell me that you simply think he is, and all I can do is shrug.
Well, you have a point. One thing the President can do is be an example. He can fix one thing at a time. He can say “Get the helicopter and all the security you want. Load two more helicopters up with supplies and aid workers. We’re going to the convention center.”
He can lead by example, and fix one thing. Give moral support. Show people how to do it. It didn’t have to be the convention center. It could have been the Superdome, the Astrodome or a releif camp or something. That should be the President’s human reaction. I remember the pride I felt after 9/11 seeing Giulianni in the streets. If you saw it, there was no question why he was there. It wasn’t a photo-op, or politicking. He was out there because he gave a shit and he wanted to be there to use his power to help.
Look at it this way: no politician cares about anyone but themselves, their immediate family, and their close friends. One would have to be extremely gullable if you think politicians actually have altruistic desires towards the voters. These are career politicians: their only goal is to advance their careers. Yes, they need to at least publically appear to support the issues valued by those that voted for them so that they can get re-elected. But they do this only so that they can get re-elected, not because they have “a loving feeling” for their voters. Bill Clinton did not “feel our pain,” all he wanted to do was feel our private parts.
Stop worshipping politicians as if they were altruistic deities.
So what makes you think minorities are so special as to garner the notice of politicians? 21 million people in this country between the ages of 18 and 29 (51.6% of people in that age range) - compared to 15 million registered black voters - voted in the 2004 election. Can you give me even a paragraph worth of speeches by either Bush or Kerry that wasted their breath showing concern for this bracket of voters? Specifically gauged towards paying attention to us, not general things like “health care” which apply to a whole lot more people. I’ll be amazed if you can.
If you’re not rich, old, a parent, or in business, politicians don’t have a lot of use for you and don’t or barely bother trying to appeal to you for your vote. Color doesn’t factor much into how easy it is to almost completely ignore you.
Hell, I’m just happy if they don’t fuck up TOO often.