"George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"

"We can make it better (better we can)" - Kanye West, We Can Make It Better (featuring Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, Common & Rhymefest)

Speaking Truth to Power.

That's my favorite phrase this week. "Speaking truth to power." I loved it when Anderson Cooper and Soledad O'Brien and Ted Koppel and Ray Nagin (who isn't above rapproach for his actions prior to the hurricane but who has been a stand up human being in the aftermath) did exactly that earlier this week and I love that an artist who will sell well over a million copies of his sophomore album this week (making him likely the most significant musician of the Fall) put it all on the line to say what he felt.

I'd quibble with the semantics a bit and say that George Bush doesn't care about poor people but you can extrapolate to his point. If you don't care about poor people and poverty effects black people at a much higher rate in this country than any other community then, by extension, you can't really care about black folks right?

If you don't have an urban renewal program, you can't care about poor black people who still live mostly in ghetto-ized urban communities.

If your recently passed bankruptcy bill that goes into effect in October will make it almost impossible for these poverty stricken disaster refugees to recoup much of anything from their losses or get out from under the massive debts they will accrue, then you can't really care about poor people.

If you continue to ignore infrastructure problems in a gulf coast community that is predominantly black while making sure that the oil and trade interests that also are based there are taken care of, you can't really care can you?

Read Sploid this week. Read Amy's Robot this week. Read the Huffington Post. Check out CNN's incredible coverage this week (welcome back to real news, CNN). The New York Times and the LA Times have been great.

Soledad O'Brien pointed out earlier in the week that it only took two days to start airlifting food to Sri Lankan Tsunami victims. It took 4 days. 4 DAYS. 4 FUCKING DAYS!!!! for New Orleans and Waveland and these other gulf port cities to start getting food and water. 4 DAYS for there to be a National Guard Presence. 4 Days for the President of the United States to survey the damage. To get on the ground. To provide leadership.

To be fucking Commander in Chief.

And still people are trapped. Still people sit on rooftops and doors and in shopping carts floating along poisoned water in the humid Southern Summer air waiting for rescue.

And all American cities should be considering what would happen if a disaster struck. In LA, we don't have much to worry about in the world of natural disasters besides a big quake and, thankfully, we seem structurally sound and prepared for such an event but we have nearly 100,000 homeless people in this city. What happens to them? What happens in South Los Angeles when a disaster strikes?

As a society are we doing the best for our weakest members?

What saddens me about that question is that that used to be a regular part of American political discourse. While fighting Communism in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we were still talking about how to help the destitute, the downtrodden, the less well off.

Now we only talk about the rich and the middle class. And our underclass grows.

And dies in domes and convention centers.

The truly disadvantaged.

If our President and our government won't care for them, who will?

Her tenement was rat infested
Her heart is like gold buillon cuz she went and protested
cuz her best friend's man got popped
He was 16 years old and a cop thought his phone was a glock
In the hood it's an every day happening
In front of the precinct she chews out the captain
She yells out, "Why you do this to Black men?"
Come on...We can make it better (better we can)
-Q-tip's verse on We Can Make it Better

Comments

[Angela]

I was going to leave a comment on your post because it was sooo true...I am so with you on everyhting you said, everything.

Then I read the first comment left by Jessica, and began to cry...

[elle-emme]

I know. I'm a little confused. Isn't this exactly the sort of situation we have the Army and other military "reserves" for? Not Everyone is in Iraq. That's just not true.

[Michelle]

If this whole situation doesn't bring up massive conversations, protests and commitment to addressing the way we deal (or don't deal) with poverty in this country and with the way our current administration has chosen to funnel our resources (money, troops, National Guard) to ("nation building") then honestly I don't know what's next. If this doesn't wake people the fuck up then seriously nothing will.

If I hear one more fucker say "they should have evacuated" then I'm going to have to poke someone's eye out. Poverty is such a foreign concept to so many the middle and upper classes that they honestly don't understand not having the money and means to evacuate. It just doesn't occur to them that people would be too poor to have their own cars and transportation out of town and unable to get a motel room for days and days if they had been able to evacuate early.

I typically try not to respond to things too harshly and without evidence but my gut tells me that if this kind of thing had happened in Boston or some other well off, white city then the response would have been a hell of a lot different. I think you're right Jason when you say it's more of a "George Bush doesn't care about poor people" situation than strictly a racial one. But you have to take it a step further and say what we all know "America doesn't care about poor Americans." We'll send billions of dollars in aid to other countries and spend billions more invading and "liberating" other countries while we're watching people die in the streets here at home. And my heart is so broken over this and I'm so righteously anger and bitter but I don't know what to do next. I've given what I can financially to the Red Cross but I don't know what the next step is to be a part of making things better in this country. I think that's going to be the cycle for all us. Just like when we invaded Iraq, just like when Bush was re-elected. We're all going to be so pissed off and motivated but directionless and then we're all going to slip back into our complacency. Maybe I'm weak for saying this but I'm waiting for someone to show me the way. I'm waiting for someone to lead. And with the current "leaders" we have I know I'm going to be waiting a long time.

[cindylu]

Kanye may not have been terribly profound, but I think you said it better.

[TUbbs]

I am so proud of my mayor right now.

Nagin didn't do the best job of getting people out of the city. Nor did he do the best job of governing the city before the storm. But still...

For the five days I was in my house waiting to get helicopter lifted out listening to a radio, the thing I heard that made me most hopeful thing I heard was Nagin saying "No more goddamned press conferences. Get off yo' asses and do something."

If only Bush had them balls.

~T, a NOLA refugee.

[drublood]

Thank you for this, Jason. So much. Today at the Red Cross call center where I was volunteering, I spoke with a caseworker in a call center in Georgia. There was a lot of unspoken rage between us...we each would say a few things about why we were volunteering, and skirt the edges of the rage. It was palpable. She said "I had to do SOMETHING, since so many people who were supposed to be in charge were doing NOTHING."

Loud and clear.

[Pauly D]

Totally agree.

[**RPM**]

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying here. I agree that by default, Dub's lack of concern for impoverished people speaks by default to his lack of care for black people.

**RPM**

[val]

Cant agree more. Bush and his cronies only care about the rich. They abondoned all those folks in the south because they were poor. This is a national disgrace, this is racism , this is a shame. Shame on your Bush, shame on all of your staff, cabinent, and all those that stand by you.

val

[Jay]

Hey Guys, dont forget to blame not only Bush for the inhumanity! The people who own those hotels and motels get the last say for whos able to stay in those establishments. They could be of some help to if they wanted! Also the companies who own the bus systems have the last say of where and what to do with their busses or other transportation sources. Let us not forget, that even though those people are pretty much stranded where they are, help is on the way, its just comming from sources that are alittle out of reach. So please, dont help people BITCH, just try the best you can to keep the hope alive! HOW ABOUT GETTING OFF YOUR ASS AND MAKING A DONATION, FOR STARTER!!!!!!!!!

[nikita demosthenes]

if george bush doesn't care about poor people - nor black people - using your logic, then neither does mayor nagin nor governor blanco. indeed, nagin and blanco are the biggest racists this country has seen in some time - using your logic - becuase:

(1) the greatest loss of life, and the greatest harship in new orleans, were caused by the mayor's and governor's failure to follow their own evacuation plan, and to use the hundreds of school buses available to get poor and disabled people out of the city before the storm.

see here:

http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html

it's the mayor and governor who have kept the red cross and salvation army from giving food and water to the people in the superdome! KEPT THE RED CROSS AND THE SALVATION ARMY FROM GIVING FOOD AND WATER TO THE PEOPLE IN THE SUPERDOME!! what would you have said if a republican had done that? it think we both know. you's say "they hate black people and poor people!" so why don't you say it now?? ah - because they're democrats. and you only criticize republicans - especially white ones.

see here:

http://instapundit.com/archives/025390.php

it was the Louisiana national guard under the governor who prevented people from leaving new orleans via the gretna bridge! see here:

http://instapundit.com/archives/025441.php

and here

http://instapundit.com/archives/025427.php

and here

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/008013.html

so i guess it's clear by now that nagin and blanco hate poor people and black people - using your logic.

so it's time to "speak truth to ..." you, mr. reflexive-bush-bashing-blogger, to use your stilted phrasing: the primary dislike evident in this story is the intense dislike that democrats have for republicans - especially white republican presidential administrations. accordingly, you and your new democrat party of all-hate-all-the-time sees no shame in trying to make political hay (and cash contributions) out of the suffering of the people along the gulf coast. it's dispicable and you should know better - and i'm sure you do know better.

nice company you keep. hucksters who attack republicans and ask for cash for democrats on the backs of the dead and dying in new orleans. to say you are immoral is too weak. you use your imorality as a new insidious weapon. and you are the vanguard of the new, hip, full-of-hate and bile democratic party.

i'm glad i don't have to live with your moral quagmire. it's ever-changing with only one consistent play-book: (1) dump the morals immediatly, (2) pose as though you have morals and plame all problems on republicans in vicious and personal ways, (3) propose no actual solutions to prolems, just repeatedly attack and defame others, and (4) get the cash to the Dems quickly. repeat.

yuck.

[alli]

...great post. wish i had more to say but when it comes to that bitch katrina and her fellow bitches in the white house and the govenors mansion....well i can't be anything but harsh...and since this is my very first comment on your page....would hate to not be welcome back...

great post. gonna link you.

[Nick Doulas]

The Katrina response, to say it nicely, is disgusting. Its obvious our government's political apointees are ridiculous. Once the the military came in and provided leadership things started to get done. Thank god for that. Liviing in montana, I can tell you this if this state ever had a serious issue like Katrina, I would never relie on the feds to help. This state is just too remote, and we as a group of people don't really mean much to Washington D.C.--sad but true. My thoughts and prays go out to the folks in the gulf region who are dealing with this disgusting situation.

[Michael]

Dear Jay,

Let me start by saying, nothing fills me with so clear a grasp of the stupidity of humanity, than the tolerence to people like George Bush, and the immense influence his band of fools seem to have gained over the minds of posterity, especially within the last couple years.

And let me tell you why. George W. Bush DOES NOT care about poor people (black people if you take into consideration the 20% neglected were those with an average per captia income one-third of that of the white population in New Orleans). If anything, apart from his own personal interests, and the well-being of his cronies and minions, he's a heartless bastard.

Let's avoid the redundant criticicm of George's disregard twards that famous "memo" and reflect instead on a pre-pre-9/11 warning; a warning issued by FEMA early 2001, concerning the three most likely disasters to face the United States.

No. 1, a terrorist attack, which, by George's incompotence, his inability to sit still during important 'grown-up meetings', and complete lack of concern for potentially devistating national threats, would soon lose america nearly 3,000 lives as he showed little to no interest in this particular threat, as he was to go on vacation soon, and had better things to do, like pack.

Forward to September 11th, 2001. Communtication brakes down, panic ensues, and people die, as the world trade centers collapse. New York City seemed much like New Orleans on this particular day, with one glaring difference, there was alot of money to be lost as the financial center of New York City crumbled; and it just so happens, not long after that second plane hit, the Feds are standing at Guliani's door step, to assist in any possible way. And here's one hint (from the many to choose from) as to why.

"One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks. The 1993 bomb detonated close to the vault, but it withstood the explosion, as did the towers. One source estimates the 1993 value of the gold at one billion dollars, believed to be owned by Kuwaiti interests. That same source claims that when the World Trade Center was destroyed, the amount of gold "far exceed[ed] the 1993 levels." The gold was finally recovered in its entirety in late 2001."

You have the leader of the free world, the president of one of the richest countries on the planet, and what just so happens to be on his feeble mind this particular day? Money and blame. Because in America, those who lose the former, gain in ten-fold, the latter. To divert this blame, however, and to gain the money lost, he wages an illegitimate war against Daddy's bully, Saddam.

History however, repeats itself, and just as sure as New York City's financial center falls, so too does New Orleans... The signifigance? In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., right alongside the terrorist attacks on N.Y.C. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war, as Halliburton (the former CEO of which just happens to be our own beloved Vice President) recieves a 7 billion dollar contract as a result. Restoration was consequentaly delayed, and the levee's broke, flood waters rose, communication failed, panic ensued, people died, but most importantly, there was no more money to be lost, as 50% of the children growing up in New Orleans were already well under the poverty line. In George's eyes, the damage had been done.

No attempts were made to help the 20% of New Orleans population who had no cars, money, or places to evacuate. Instead, rescue efforts were hindered as George came to Walmarts rescue against looters with orders to "shoot and kill." (Perhaps Walmart's monetary influence over the Bush administration may have had some influence over that?)

Now the fact is, Jay, local and state officials have been warning FEMA for years of a simalar catastrophe, and in return they were called doomsday sayers. The fact is, even afterwards, at no point did these officials say, don't help us. Jay, you are a bold faced liar. Until the entire United States pulls itself from this self incurred minority as a result of years of tolerence to this fascist, oligarchic government (and believe it or not, it is possible to live in both a republic and a fascist state. It's rather simple actually, the preferred class lives in a republic while the oppressed class lives in a fascist state.), and liars like you, stupidity will prevail, and greed will continue to corrupt the democratics and the republicans, of which I am niether.

[bella by barlight]

Really well said, wonderful post. I wanted to comment on one thing you mentioned in particular: "What saddens me about that question is that that used to be a regular part of American political discourse. While fighting Communism in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we were still talking about how to help the destitute, the downtrodden, the less well off."

I don't see this as an incongruity actually. With the ever-present threat of international communism during the "hotter" periods of the Cold War, the American government was forced to address issues of social welfare. "Workers of the world UNITE" doesn't have the same air of menace since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It would have been pretty hard to sell Democracy world-wide without at least *appearing* to address the failures of Democracy on the United State's own soil. (Not that I'm saying anything *was* addressed... having something as "part of political discourse" doesn't always mean consistently forward movement)

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[bobosan]

Kanye West is a black-on-everyone-else racist and an insult to America