GAHHHH!!!!

[stoney321]

I know there are folks on my flist that probably don't like rap, hip-hop or Kanye West. Well... I do. I jumped up Friday night during the Red Cross telethon and cheered when he went off script and said Bush doesn't care about black people. He's right. And Bush represents a LARGE CHUNK OF AMERICA.

Now, I'm not going to try and wow you with my essay skillz. Or be the intellectual disconnected observer saying things in a manner that impresses you with my acumen. Because I'm not that person. I am the person that is giving off a primal scream of RAGE. You've been warned.


I've tried to not add fuel to the fire, because honestly: what is my linking you to the same stuff going to do? I'd rather roll my sleeves up and do something. But this morning, I heard a man give what at first seemed like a reasonable solution for folks coming in to neighboring states and looking for work: adopt a system like FDR during the Depression and have people work for themselves - for their own improvment, their city's improvement... Excellent. Worked then, could work now if we can make the red tape disappear. Then he followed it up with this:

Sadly, I doubt we will be in danger of being trampled by the rush of people to accept that offer.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM RIGHT HERE. The general assumption being that the folks displaced by Katrina are deadbeats. Are you trying to tell me there were no working people in New Orleans? In Slidell? In Gulf Port? No teachers? Lawyers? Computer techs? Janitors? Housecleaners? Secretaries? Two guesses as to the age of this... white man.

I am not going to be liked for this, and I don't give a shit: I am fucking ready for our "Greatest Generation" to friggin' die off, take their Jim Crow southern mentality, their old fashioned "morals" and fucking decompose. I am ALSO ready for MY generation, the one that doesn't generally bat an eye at inter-racial marriages, differing sexual orientations, longing for socialized Health Care to friggin' RISE UP and start improving things. If you are of age, and don't vote, please know that I don't have a lot of respect for you. That's a shitty thing to say, I'm sure, but Jesus Christ. Shit or get off the pot. That lackadaisical attitude is what allows a region to be forgotten. We have fucking abandoned the Delta region, and it's been that way for decades. God, a century or more.

Some how, it is still okay for us to not care about lower income blacks. There are still politicians who don't see that region as "viable" and divert money from, say... SECURING A CITY from NATURAL DISASTERS, or getting MENTAL HEALTH FACILITIES IN PLACE, or initiating DRUG REHABILITATION FACILITIES, in favor of spending money on ad campaigns on how the EPA is full of shit when it comes to pollutants from the PVC factories along the gulf coast. The gov't was so corrupt in LA, that they could LEGALLY pull you over and confiscate your vehicle, cash, property, etc. if they SUSPECTED you of trafficking drugs. Little old ladies in their Lincoln Town cars on their way to Ole Miss to visit their grandaughters getting hauled off so the local sheriff could get her car and diamond. I am not making this up. 20/20 did an expose on this a few years back.

And where was our outrage? Where was the disgust that we let theives and liars and crooks overrun a place? We didn't CARE because there are still people in this world that think the "blacks will kill themselves off." I could fucking chew nails at shit like that.

We need to make education, health care, and drug rehabilitation a priority. That goes a long way to helping people not LIVE in the conditions they were living in. And now there are 10,000 people still living in New Orleans because the battered four walls that are still standing are ALL THEY HAD. And their shot-gun shacks were what was left from their 40 acres. One man in the local paper told a man who tried to evacuate him yesterday, "Son, I've lived through worse." I cannot tell you how much that statement breaks my heart, because it is fucking TRUE.

There are still confederate flags in the south. There are still old-timer Dixiecrats that wish there were whites only bathrooms. I am fucking ready for those people to leave this life, and I don't care how that makes me sound.

For the record: the local news was at the Reunion Arena and Convention Center here in Dallas - which, for the record, the Convention Center is also set up as a hospital/prescription refill site - where there are no co-pays for prescriptsion - and interviewed some of the evacuees. One woman had spent a good hour looking through cast off clothing to find something presentable to go on a job interview today. Oh, she was black. One man was talking about how he would do any kind of work, and was trying to sign up to help keep the Convention Center clean, if only to stay busy. He was black. One kid, a little thugged out with pants sagging and lots of ink was wondering what was going to happen, and how he didn't have aplan for the future. He was white. It's really easy to sit in a clean house, intact, no armed guards patrolling outside your battered door and make blanket statements about the people displaced by Katrina. Real fucking easy.

And I'm tapped. For now. Sorry for the earful, but only kinda.


For those who are still looking for ways to help, a Utah based rescue group: Best Friends Animal Society (http://www.bestfriends.org) has rescue teams helping animals, getting them into a sanctuary in Miss. and trying to unite pets with their owners. That is all shades of wonderful.

A website: (http://www.dallashurricaneaid.org) has been set up to help small businesses that were displaced find new space, job opportunities, support.

The Dallas Morning News is offering free four-line 10 day ads to offer aid, support, goods, job offers, and services to the victims of Katrina. Call them at (214) 745-8123.

Comments

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

I know at 43 I'm quite a bit older than you, but I have peers my age and up into their 60s who feel the same way you do. I'm quite serious. It's not just old fogey's who are out of touch.

I also have peers my age and a younger who are such narrow-minded bigots, you'd think they were born in the wrong millenium.

I have also been quite disappointed to hear the rude remarks made about "those people" coming from my African-American students and student library aides. Along the lines of, "Those people are going to destroy Houston, Texas. Houston will never be the same. South Texas will never be the same. They need to be carted off!"

I'm sure they are hearing that from their parents at home at night, but it still hurts my feelings.

Of course, I work at a majority Hispanic/African American high school. We probably have 20 white students in the the entire population of 1200.

I'm sure if I was out in (I'm not going to start naming towns because I don't want to offend people) I'd hear the white students saying horrible things too.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

(I'm 33 - not THAT much of a whippersnapper) But you have to admit that a certain demographic is more prone to hitting the lock on their door at seeing a group of black men walking down the street, or sniffing at some one and assuming they are sitting on their asses cashing welfare checks.

Jesus, my grandmother STILL says with PRIDE: "I have a black friend." Well, let me hand you a medal. And when you get into small towns, where there isn't exposure to the outside world, you just perpetuate that mentality that thinks the confederate flag is a "symbol" of the south, and not a racist trigger, or that "mixed blood" marriages are an abomination.

Racism is just disgusting to me in any form. Believe me that I get just as angry over the use of "Oriental" or "Spic."

I'm glad Kanye West said what he did - and if the African-Americans in your school are saying derogatory remarks? Well... that just lays me low.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the African-American students making rude, racist remarks. Like I said, we have very few whites. I underestimated that. I check our school profile online, and it's says we were 3% white 2 years ago. Last year's profile isn't up.

One Hispanic girl asked me why people kept living in New Orleans if they new something bad like this could happen. I explained to her that on a violent, volatile, living organism such as Planet Earth, a horrible natural disaster could strike anywhere. I asked her if she thought the state of California should be evacuated? I waited for her to remark on the stupidity of New Orlean's citizenry, but she didn't.

I admire Kayne West for having the nerve to say what he said, but I think a lot of what I'm hearing from the students is economic prejudice. People with money and/or opportunity look down on those without either or both.

No one wants to live around a bunch of poor disenfranchised individuals, even if they're one of them. And it is a fact, that the majority of the poor in our country are African American and Hispanic. Of course, there are very many poor white people too, but they are not disproportionately poor in this country the way blacks are.

Of course, I'm *extremely terrified* of White Trash, Rednecks. I'm terrified of them. I would go to South Dallas or Oakcliff, or visit Denver Harbor or Cottage Grove in Houston, or any Ward in Houston, but I'm terrified of Pasadena, Texas because of my perception of the over abundance of scary Rednecks there. I'm probably totally wrong, but it seems every time a felonious, white criminal is picked up or ran to ground around here, he's run to ground in Pasadena. And they've always done something quite horrible. They are usually poor too, and I probably should feel more compassionate toward them, but I just feel scared. I am especially scared if Trashy/redneck white guys eye me at traffic lights or when I go into convenience stores.

Also, I'd apply to work at a Maximum Security Federal Prison before I'd go to Vidor, Texas or practically any of the towns surrounding it.

My apartment complex has a mixture of races from all over the world. Every ethnic group is represented. Also, every social class is represented. It does seem like we're all working folks. I say that because when I'm home during the summer, the parking lots are empty. Last night, one of my black neighbors (a man about my age) was complaining about the same thing my students complained about. He said, "They're going to let all those poor people move in here, and they're going to take to clunking our heads. You watch. You'll have to stop taking your walks in the evening."

My brother and SIL, who live in Highland Village, are scared to visit me where I live. Hah. I've lived here ten years without incident.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a theory that any one named "Wayne" or "Floyd" be it the first or middle name, is going to turn out to be a violent criminal. SERIOUSLY: do a google on that name, and you'll come up with a laundry list of scary, redneck white men that raped, killed, etc.

Moral: don't name your children Wayne or Floyd. Or you know, be a dumbfuck redneck.

ALSO: true statement about haves versus the have nots. But a lot of the people displaced were working class folks who's entire family lived in the region. Where are they supposed to go? Their extended family was in the same boat, so to speak. It's that misconception that every person on a Greyhound out of the region is a person on welfare/drug addict/violent thug that is making me so angry. You mean to tell me that the white boys in Omaha don't deal meth/beat up women/rape?

Once these people can get cleaned up, dressed, catch their friggin' breaths and tell their tales, the US will see that these are med students, secretaries, small business owners, musicians, restaurant owners.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

Wayne Gacy. Pretty Boy Floyd. Rednecks. :shudder: Deliverance is the scariest movie I have ever seen in my life. In my life!

Oh, and another girl pointed out that they are *already* investigating a rape in the Astrodome, and they had to put a curfew on them.

I told her it was a city, and there were like several rapes a week in Houston, so the people in the Astrodome should be more afraid of us than we should be of them.

When I lived in Lubbock a long time ago, according to the demographics put out by the FBI at the time, it was briefly the murder capital of the United States. This was based on the number of murders per capita. You can't get more White bread than Lubbock.

Of course many of the people stranded are White Collar professionals, and I'm sure that is going to come as a huge shock to me, and most of the others, I'm sure are BlueCollar hard working individuals, and business owners.

Isn't meth and oxycontin the rednecks'crack? That's what I heard anyway.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Meth definitely is. One of the vital ingredients is either a pesticide or nutrient that farmers put on crops and the FDA regulates it so much that really only farmers can buy it. So it literally gets stolen out of fields and mostly from small(ish) family farms, which generally equals redneck country.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

Damn it. I thought I'd logged in. I responded to someone on your list about my dad working at the farmers' supply store. I also talked about Dorothy, Cinco and Uno.


Sorry. I thought I'd logged in.