The ugly truth

[swampfox]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-292991c.html

Why we couldn’t save the people of New Orleans




Scene outside the Convention Center after spending four days in squalor after Hurricane Katrina.

Bubbling up from the flood that destroyed New Orleans are images, beamed around the world, of America's original and continuing sin: the shabby, contemptuous treatment this country metes out, decade after decade, to poor people in general and the descendants of African slaves in particular. The world sees New Orleans burning and dying today, but the televised anarchy - the shooting and looting, needless deaths, helpless rage and maddening governmental incompetence - was centuries in the making.

To the casual viewer, the situation is an incomprehensible mess that raises questions about the intelligence, sanity and moral worth of those trapped in the city. Why didn't those people evacuate before the hurricane? Why don't they just walk out of town now? And why should anyone care about people who are stealing and fighting the police?

That hard, unsympathetic view is the traditional American response to the poverty, ignorance and rage that afflict many of us whose great-great-grandparents once made up the captive African slave labor pool. In far too many cities, including New Orleans, the marching orders on the front lines of American race relations are to control and contain the very poor in ghettos as cheaply as possible; ignore them completely if possible; and call in the troops if the brutes get out of line.

[Robert Bay]

Edited down posts.

News quotes are to be short (1-4 paragraphs) and contain a link to the article.

[swampfox]

Originally Posted by Robert Bay

Edited down posts.

News quotes are to be short (1-4 paragraphs) and contain a link to the article.

New rules?

[Robert Bay]

Originally Posted by swampfox

New rules?

No

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[swampfox]

Got to read the fine print from now on.

[Courtneyjo]

"Crime, even before the hurricane, was high. The murder rate has come down in recent years, but remains 10 times the national average. Last year, researchers had police fire 700 blank rounds in a city neighborhood one afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...that_was_hk1_2