Where is the outrage?

[tmma 467]

I'm stealing this one!

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'm stealing this one!

i've stolen a few of yours........ remember this one?

[jundp 191]

I think that it's really easy to judge when you don't walk a mile in someone else's shoes....

It depends... are they Manolo's????

Love you sister.

And I agree with you.

If they were Manolos.....

The truth is that much of the devastation at the Convention Center and the Superdome happened to blacks in the city who didn't have a way to get out.

That's not pulling a race card...that's stating the facts.

I don't know about other demographics but if someone advised me of a huge storm and I lived within a city protected by levees; I would get out. But hey that is just me.

Otherwise I guess I too could simply wait there, loot, and then blame the federal government for everything. "Where's job Buuuuuuuush..." style. Because much like Canada, the UK and Australia, America is obviously a federally oriented nation. Therefore little responsibility falls on the city, county and state government right?

I would like to reiterate again that for some people SOME PEOPLE (not all, for sure) but SOME leaving was absolutely not an option. How would many of them leave? No public transportation was running... and some of the poorer people had no way to leave the city.

It's really easy for you to be flippant about it because it wasn't your family or friends or even fellow city-dwellers that were affected. My family and friends got out, but that doesn't mean my heart doesn't break when I heard of single mothers with small children, elderly, super poor, and sick who were stuck in the city with no way out. Meanwhile, days before the storm hit there were hundreds of school and city buses that could have taken people to safety but were never utilized. I don't know why.

I blame Nagin and Blanco for their actions (or lack thereof) as do most natives. So your complaints that the people just blamed Bush are not wholly based in fact. Oh, believe me Blanco, Nagin, and the Army Corps of Engineers were on that list too.

I may not have been there when the hurricane hit and other than my youngest sister who was missing for weeks (and 8 months pregnant!) I knew my family was safe. However, I watched in horror knowing that people were still in the city. In addition to those who "chose not to leave" were countless medical and emergency personnel who either stayed (for example though the major hospitals in NOLA and on the Gulf Coast were evacuated of all but essential personnel, one of my sisters had to stay at Parkland Hospital) in Mississippi because she's a nursing director and she had to stay for those who were too ill to move) or returned in the hours before the levees broke.

Where was Nagin? He fled and didn't return for days. Hell, Harry Connick Jr was in the city before Nagin was....And HCJ was bringing food, pulling people from rooftops, etc.

I just don't know if I can get you to understand that it's not a black/white issue or blaming. Have you ever experienced the kind of horror that came with Katrina?

I think that it's really easy to judge when you don't walk a mile in someone else's shoes....

I have heard this similar argument used over and over again on VJ. Where unless someone is basically black American they obviously don't know ####.

Now lets look at how a non African-American immigrant community handled the recovery in New Orleans. That as an actual 'minority'. Can anyone spot the government assistance.

Um. I'm not African American and where on earth did I say that unless a person is they don't know ####?

I'm sorry but human compassion isn't about color. #######?

[tmma 467]

I'm stealing this one!

i've stolen a few of yours........ remember this one?

LOL .... I think Mark made that one........not sure....I'll ask him later.

Edited July 11, 2008 by tmma

[Heracles 417]

We have already been told by people who live in the area that getting out was not a choice some of the poorest people could make.

Right, and like I said earlier-LOCAL officials were kept constantly appraised of the impending situation DAYS beforehand.

Provisions could and should have been made for the poor, sick and infirm at the local level, in their local Govt's [non-existent] preparedness plan.Here is a resource that could have been used if the local Govt had chosen to

There is a huge amount of blame to spread everywhere, including individual choices of property over life, to officials not utilizing resources they had soon enough.

And while there is a blame to spread the responsibility lies on each individual. Human instinct.

I wonder what people have to say about all of the looting that occurred the followings days. Obviously stealing a plasma is all about survival right. Same goes with ripping off the credit cards given to people. These are not isolated cases but millions and millions of dollars worth of money exploited during the disaster. By the same people chanting "wherezzz Geooooooorge Buuuuuuuuush...."

[Heracles 417]

Why do people make pointless comments like this stating how they dont care if your black white yellow pink purple....blah blah blah. Those are useless statements because of course there are no purple people. Show me the culture that is referred to as Purples! Purple-Americans! We are not Black-Americans by the color of our skin.....our skin color is not black for one. Its Brown or many shades of brown. When speaks of Black people in disdain you are not speaking of our skin you are speaking of our culture. So to say you dont care about the 500 million other colors of people is ignorant cause they DON'T EXIST!

Get real people. Obviously by this thread, people are natural stereotypers. They percieve certain things by what they have been told, or seen or exposed to and most times not by what is actually true. Its depressing as a Black person in this country to constantly come to the OT forums and see such ill statements made about Black-Americans....as if we are all the same, as if we have no feelings and as if we cause others in this country so much pain. Each cultural group of people have "bad apples", but it seems that the ONLY opinion made on Visa Journey OT forums, about Black people, is NEGATIVE! Why is that? And just about ALL the comments come from people who have never took the time to delve into the life of an average Black-American. We are merely and simply Americans, nothing less nothing more. But as you can tell from how people perceive us we are constantly seen as this seperate American entity causing us to never truly feel as if we belong to the country in which we've lived in and known our ENTIRE generation. We are not 2nd or 3rd or 4th generation Americans....we are orginal Americans. We are just a cultural group in America.

This whole idealogy of putting Katrina victims against those of the recent Mid-West floods and braking it down by racial issues is pure ignorance...where is the outrage in that? I dont even know how this became a racial issue. Or better yet another VJ ranting thread to state degrading comments about Blacks! I dont see Blacks or other cultures on here making degrading comments about Whites. Why is it always the other way around? Why do people have such a malevolent reactions towards Black people. It is extremely hurtful and just one of those things that most all Blacks wish would end. We have been having enough of that in our country and just want to be made to feel apart of it.

Black American is describing a culture. Much like Rednecks, Italian Americans, Yankees, Southerns, Mid West, Aussies etc. It was actually black Americans who during Katrina used the race card and used it to describe how it was handled. Hence the comparison of the mid west situation where no one sits there and blames, let alone accuses, the government for being racist. If need be I can dig up the news stories from Katrina to prove this.

It is quite hypocritical to accuse others when there are so many black Americans who regularly play the race card. While not here on VJ but certainly in the media. Yet everyone else is told to take race out of the equation. Like someone saying you fix your mistakes and then I will fix mine. In other words nothing will change.

Edited July 11, 2008 by Boo-Yah!

[tmma 467]

We have already been told by people who live in the area that getting out was not a choice some of the poorest people could make.

Right, and like I said earlier-LOCAL officials were kept constantly appraised of the impending situation DAYS beforehand.

Provisions could and should have been made for the poor, sick and infirm at the local level, in their local Govt's [non-existent] preparedness plan.Here is a resource that could have been used if the local Govt had chosen to

There is a huge amount of blame to spread everywhere, including individual choices of property over life, to officials not utilizing resources they had soon enough.

And while there is a blame to spread the responsibility lies on each individual. Human instinct.

I wonder what people have to say about all of the looting that occurred the followings days. Obviously stealing a plasma is all about survival right. Same goes with ripping off the credit cards given to people. These are not isolated cases but millions and millions of dollars worth of money exploited during the disaster. By the same people chanting "wherezzz Geooooooorge Buuuuuuuuush...."

[jundp 191]

So even though I agree with some of what you say, you still won't acknowledge the other aspects of my posts because you think I'm "blaming"?

[tmma 467]

So even though I agree with some of what you say, you still won't acknowledge the other aspects of my posts because you think I'm "blaming"?

who are you asking?

Edited July 11, 2008 by tmma

[jundp 191]

So even though I agree with some of what you say, you still won't acknowledge the other aspects of my posts because you think I'm "blaming"?

who are you asking?

Boo Yah

[Heracles 417]

So even though I agree with some of what you say, you still won't acknowledge the other aspects of my posts because you think I'm "blaming"?

who are you asking?

Boo Yah

I meant in general; not you personally. I remember seeing over and over again in the media people chanting where's George Bush etc. Followed by the racist conspiracies which came soon after.

Like "George Bush hates black People" from that clown rapper.

[jundp 191]

So even though I agree with some of what you say, you still won't acknowledge the other aspects of my posts because you think I'm "blaming"?

who are you asking?

Boo Yah

I meant in general; not you personally. I remember seeing over and over again in the media people chanting where's George Bush etc. Followed by the racist conspiracies which came soon after.

Like "George Bush hates black People" from that clown rapper.

Ok, thank you for clearing that up.

I was getting irritated because I thought I explained my POV quite clearly...

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I'm stealing this one!

i've stolen a few of yours........ remember this one?

LOL .... I think Mark made that one........not sure....I'll ask him later.

he did

[Krikit 1,165]

Call me crazy but I would get out.

Okay. You're crazy.

[Sister Fracas 5]