Fundamentalism, Racism and Natural Disasters

Two weeks ago I went to visit my family in West Virginia. I haven't been home since November so I was excited to see everyone even though my visit had to be short because of committments in New York. I was curious to hear family members interpretations/responses to Hurricane Katrina and its devestation of New Orleans. I was dismayed and disturbed by some family members lack of sensitivity to the victims, and conservative interpretations of the federal government's response in the Crescent City. Here are some of the most disturbing reactions:

1. One family member, who I sometimes refer to as Jim Crow, blamed the victims for their ostensible unwillingness to leave. In hateful, angry tones he told me that if he didnt feel sorry for any of the people left there because they were told to evacuate and refused to go. He was unmoved by my comment that most of the people left behind had nowhere else to go, or any money to get them there. They were, in fact, stuck and at the mercy of nature and inept politicians whose inactions accentuated an already miserable situation.

2. Jim Crow (who is a 50 something white man) was also upset by "government handouts" to these victims. In a most inarticulate, insensitive manner, he compared his own troubles with trying to get government assistance (because his health, supposedly, prevents him from working) with the people of New Orleans, claiming that "it's easy for them (read: poor, black) to get anything they want." When I informed him that his situation was quite different from people who had lost EVERYTHING they ever owned or knew to a hurricane, he, again, was unfazed.

3. Jim Crow was also upset that the government was relocating some of the evacuees to different parts of the country, including West Virginia. He informed me that "the southern black" couldn't live in places with winter weather, as they were not used to it. He was adamantly against evacuees coming to his state, and felt they should be sent to warmer areas where they would feel more at home. After hearing this he suggested that Detroit would be a better place to send them than West Virginia. Last time I checked Detroit also had snow and freezing temps in the winter. Again, Jim Crow's irrational, contradictory ideas were stunted by his own racism.

4. Lastly, Jim Crow informed me in a rambling, incoherent way that New Orleans was a "wide open" city where anything goes - prostitution, public drunkenness etc etc and what the government should do is take a bunch of bulldozers and just dump all the remains of the city into the gulf. This, of course, is a reaction fueled by religious fundamentalism. God is giving New Orleans hell because of its sinful ways. To this I simply said that New Orleans was my favorite city in this country, and was the most culturally interesting places in the U.S, and that prostitution was not, in fact, legal there. Oy-Vey. What can you do with such supreme ignorance? This man wouldn't be out of place in 1960 Mississippi. I chalked this up to his lack of education, and the fact that he lives in an area that is 95 % white that has had it's share of race problems over the years.

And then one of Anne's family members (educated, professional - a man of color) came to visit and made similar observations ...........

I'm astounded by the lack of compasssion above all else. How can you watch scenes of dead people on a street in the U.S. or people crying out of such a deep sense of loss and frustration and not be moved or sympathetic? Racism is a powerful thing, and it is alive and well in the U.S. as the reactions to this hurricane have proven.