(Cross posted at The Blog Roundup.)
As I listen to the cable news coverage from New Orleans, I've finally today been hearing some discussion of how the dividing lines of race and poverty have been so starkly highlighted in the aftermath of this tragedy. In particular black leaders such as the members of the Black Congressional Caucus and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are now standing up and saying that the government's response to this disaster has been at best incompetent and shameful in its treatment of the poor, the old, the infirm, and the sick - which in New Orleans means predominantly the black population of the city.
(more on America's Dirty Little Secret after the jump...)
To their credit, none of these black leaders seem to be making accusations of deliberate or blatant racial discrimination in the relief effort, although because the black community has been so disproportionately affected they have inevitably felt the need to speak out about it. However, for whatever reasons these spokespeople for the black community haven't been asking the questions which I believe are fundamental in this situation:
Why is it that so many of the poorest people in New Orleans are black? and it's converse:
Why is it that so many of the black people in New Orleans are poor?
This is one of the dirty little secrets of this country which doesn't get discussed much in public. Of course there are poor people all over America, but the vast numbers of desperately impoverished blacks in the South and elsewhere is the clearest example to me of the legacy of slavery and racism which still exists today, and which so obviously in practice discriminates against the black population in situations like this.
As a white person, I'm honestly embarrassed and ashamed by the scenes which I've seen on TV in the past few days, where in 4 out of 5 shots of people suffering and in dire circumstances, the only people in the frame are black (except for the occasional stray white reporter, cop, soldier, or relief worker), and nothing was being done to help them. The real discrimination in this situation is, I believe, a class one. However, because so many of New Orleans poor are black, there is no escaping the corollary that for much of America, class discrimination is, by definition, racial discrimination.
Walking down Main Street America it's sometimes hard to tell the rich from the poor. But it's much easier to see the color of someone's skin, and this disaster has exposed the dirty little secret of poverty and race for the world to see. We must, we must, use this opportunity of the curtain being ripped aside to show all of America the disparity between the haves and have nots. To demand an end to tax cuts for the rich, to laws benefiting special interests at the expense of ordinary people, to the shameful number of citizens who live every day in poverty, to the millions without healthcare. This is not even a political issue, it's a moral one. It's just the right thing to do.
- Trendar