For the first time in my life I find myself grasping for words. I female I have never met has caused unimaginable pain and suffering. She has destroyed a city and with at hundreds of thousands of lives. Her name is Katrina and she caused the most memorable natural disaster in American history.
As I watch the coverage of Katrina with disbelief and horror a dozen questions crossed my mind. How could an entire city be destroyed in such a short period of time? Why did this happen in New Orleans and Mississippi? Why is the federal government asking so long to help those affected? Why did the state of Florida, whose governor is the brother of President Bush, receive immediate financial and other aid with significantly less damage? How did dozens of reporters and camera get in and out of the flooded area while resources of food, medicine and water could not?
How did American military personnel and planes find their way to drop food by parachute to Tsunami victims thousands of miles away within hours of the Tsunami but could not navigate themselves to a state a few hundred miles away for more than five days? What do pictures of Black dead bodies, dehydrated black babies and sick elderly black people in wheel chairs tell the world about the value of black life in America in 2005?
Yes I am playing the race card; it is the hand that I was dealt. It is a card I play because the media that makes the news thought the world wanted to see images of a few black folk looting stores rather than thousands of black folk hungry, wert and dying. The fact that some black folk were costing corporations a few dollars was more important than tens of thousands of black lives totally devastated by not actions of their own but by an act of God. Systematic racism embedded in the roots of American politics and the pocketbooks and stock symbols of corporate America dives the media and the way they report the news.
I cannot imagine what it was like to be black and in Louisiana this past week. I know what it has been like to be black in America for more than half a century and Katrina used her wind to unveil that reality to the world. In spite of the Bushes of the world I still value people more than money and I believe that God will have the last word.