Katrina: How Black & White the details of poverty really are...

"Even now, these powerful tools of white racism are used to justify racial inequality and perpetuate the still fundamental racist relations of the United States. Under the watchful eyes of white elites, New Orleans and the United States generally, have developed structurally over fifteen generations now to maintain these alienated and alienating racist-relations in major societal institutions. In this manner, white elites, as well as rank-and-file whites, have kept a large proportion of our African American citizens in unjust poverty—with chronically underfunded schools, diminished job opportunities, and limited housing choices. This unjust impoverishment takes place within a continuing framework of well-institutionalized racism, which provides most whites with the current benefits and privileges coming from many generations of unjust enrichment."

That quote encompasses just about everything I've been saying for over a decade. Katrina isn't the first time in history that the importance of the lives of people of color have been diminished. Slavery was an economical period of injust that allowed Whites to capitalize from the labor of blacks while abusing, degrading and reducing them to servants only good enough to wash their clothes, work on their farms and raise their children. This has greatly affected the women of color as result. As many commentators dispute the racial claims, it's hard to think of anything but blatant racism when clear & consistent measures weren't taken to have residents, mainly of color and in a lower class, evacuated prior to the hurricane. Hurricane Irene recently hit New England in a way it's never experienced before and all measures and precautions were taken to be certain that lives & properties were preserved. Is New Orleans, a historically racially divided city, any different than the affluent and highly Causcasian populated Northeast? Well of course it is. Even though the very backbone of New Orleans was created at the expense of a culture's identity, those people still weren't good enough to try to save along with their livelihood.

Not only did New Orleans divide the black community against each other (light skinned free slaves against darker skinned black people -- which is still a cultural dispute to this day) but they made it economically, politically and socially difficult to advance as a resident of color in that region. What I don't understand is how a whole group of people are good enough to ensure the financial stability of another people, yet once freed, are denied their basic civil rights by the same race that they helped lift up. In many ways, the aftermath of slavery as well as Katrina are still vivid indicators that society views African Americans as second class citizens, still not worthy to do more than clean, cook and be subservient to the financially dominant race. Although Whites are at the financial threshold of our society, they are actually becoming the minority, with the United States as well as other countries giving new meaning to the term "melting pot." Class analysis is important because not only can we see the disparities between gender, race & economic status but we can further identify how they intertwine, intersect and run together like lines written in ink on a wet paper.

It isn't circumstantial; it's intentional. The ability to discriminate based on economic means forces people of color, especially African Americans, to remain at the bottom of the food chain despite the growing numbers of men and women of color with degrees from higher education. The lack of people in color in politics, the government and most law-making positions assures that their voices won't be heard. After all, if you're too busy being worried about where you will live after a hurricane, you can't possibly be focused on a future in politics or economics to better your life and the lives of those around you affected by a society that is determined to keep you from rising above the poverty level. Racism also plays on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Racism ensures that the basic needs are barely met so that people of color cannot ever hope to achieve more than the basics, if that, let alone, dreams of being in power and advancing in class, despite race. In some ways, I believe that there are people who make light of Katrina and other issues within communities of color for fear that they would one day rise above and be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin like Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of.

Katrina is just one way that racism has been institutionalized by class and race. Race is always second to class in the United States, especially in the North, when it comes to matter of treatment, but it usually is the underlying factor that influences the responses and actual reactions to things that occur. The fact that Laura Bush & other whites were able to make callous jokes about the disparity & possibly "better conditions" in hotels that Blacks faced AFTER Katrina clearly shows the lack of integrity and common respect for people of color. If someone made a joke about a hurricane or tornado in the Mid-West that affected middle class or possibly even lower class whites, it would have been a different story.

The United States constantly seeks to ignore, destroy and eliminate diversity & culture at its most basic roots, by stealing it all and claiming it as their own. So many peoples of color have suffered throughout history at the hands of capitalism, racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice. As long as the percentage of the dominant race continues to be the dominant holders of the greatest financial means as well as the best employment, education, residence, and means of advancement, then the voices of the rest of the invisible race-less, class-less will not be recognized. In fact, they don't exist, so then again, neither do I.