Moral poverty cost blacks in New Orleans

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
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Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:

1. What would you do?

2. What would you do if you were black?

Sadly, the two questions don't have the same answer.

To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.

For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.

No longer. When 75 percent of New Orleans residents had left the city, it was primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out. This, as we know, did not turn out good results.

Enter Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect: Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.

Of course, if these two were really serious about laying blame on government, they should blame the local one. Responsibility to perform – legally and practically – fell first on the mayor of New Orleans. We are now all familiar with Mayor Ray Nagin – the black Democrat who likes to yell at President Bush for failing to do Nagin's job. The facts, unfortunately, do not support Nagin's wailing. As the Washington Times puts it, "recent reports show [Nagin] failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city."

One wonders how there was "no way" for these people to evacuate the city. We have photographic evidence telling us otherwise. You've probably seen it by now – the photo showing 200 parked school buses, unused and underwater. How much planning does it require to put people on a bus and leave town, Mayor Nagin?

Instead of doing the obvious, Mayor Nagin (with no positive contribution from Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the other major leader vested with responsibility to address the hurricane disaster) loaded remaining New Orleans residents into the Superdome and the city's convention center. We know how that plan turned out.

About five years ago, in a debate before the National Association of Black Journalists, I stated that if whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

All Americans must tell blacks this truth. It was blacks' moral poverty – not their material poverty – that cost them dearly in New Orleans. Farrakhan, Jackson, and other race hustlers are to be repudiated – they will only perpetuate this problem by stirring up hatred and applauding moral corruption. New Orleans, to the extent it is to be rebuilt, should be remade into a dependency-free, morally strong city where corruption is opposed and success is applauded. Blacks are obligated to help themselves and not depend on the government to care for them. We are all obligated to tell them so.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."

Involved Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 293

OK from a Kiwi's point of view...one that is made from the point of view of a fly on the wall watching the world go by around.
The issue is NOT race, black , white, brown or green, it is one of poverty and family structure (or lack of it). Poverty and lack of family structure, thu statistically go hand in hand, are separate issues.
Poverty is not having the means, financially or education to act.
Family structure break down is where this has been broken down by drugs, lack of self discipline and removal of the state of parenting responsibilities from parents by the "do gooders" and their extremists views eg stop smacking because a few abuse.
Over a a couple generations one then ends up with a social structure that doesn't exist.
If we look at other, and even greater disasters around the world in poverty areas (Asia) in recent times we see that the anarchy that resulted in New Orleans, happen but at very low levels (theres always a bad apple in the basket) The difference between New Orleans and other areas is not race, is not poverty, it is the social structure in place at the time.
It is very easy to identify a problem, too often the reason/cause of the problem is not identified correctly either because of not thinking thru to the final conclusion, or simply in this case political mischief.
The problem existed well before the disaster, the disaster simply identified it by placing an already dysfunctional social structure under stress.
So the next step is to ask why is the social structure dysfunctional? To say Race, load of crap, to say poverty , load of crap...just look around at other incidences in resent history...
To say the State, load of crap, look around at other places in the US...so what does that leave? The human element and attitude/policies of the administration of the dysfunctional society. The society has broken down over several generations, so one then has to look at the generations of the policies of the administrations. The guys there at the moment, bad luck, u are it, u are there at this moment in time to take the can for u continuation of these policies of your predecessors.
The sol'n?
While there is not admin who can stand up, admit the human element of the 'system' has screwed up, stands around pointing fingers to protect their own rear end and salary, Nothing will change for next time. History shows its a special person who can do this, A MLKing, a Gandi, M.J.Savage, Mandela, B.hunter.
I don't see one at this point in time, so there is NO Sol'n

The original questions
1. What would you do?
2. What would you do if you were black?
The later question is the wrong question should be
2. What would you do if you were in a dysfunctional society