Who's the scapegoat? Find out quick!

The ravages of Hurricane Katrina are almost too horrible to comprehend. Entire towns underwater, thousands probably dead, the waste, the disease, the violence – and all seemingly handed to a population who couldn’t have had it any worse. They, along with many other poor communities in this country, were forgotten, swallowed up in Red states and other political jargon. The conservatives take care of their voters, right? Not so, we are learning. And why is that? I’d argue that it’s not a race issue at all. It’s all about the money and a disproportioned U.S. priority system.

Louisiana had asked for years for Congressional aid to fix the levy problem. No answer. In 2004, Congress did actually allocate a Gulf Coast Aid program. And where did most of that money go? You guessed it… little brother Jeb. Such a good kid. And so many affluent constituents! And how much money have we spent on an imaginary enemy in the desert? (I'm not naming names of course.) How many people have died for that in comparison to money and effort spent on very real domestic issues?

So the issue, at least in my opinion, is not about race directly. However, it is a fact that the majority of poor people in New Orleans are African-American. You can’t escape that. But I’d argue that even if they were white, the situation would be the same. It came down to poverty, lack of priorities and plain bad luck.

By “bad luck” I mean of all things, nature is the least discriminating. Hurricane Katrina would’ve destroyed the Gulf Coast no matter what – no matter who lived there or how much money was involved. Nature doesn’t see race. Nature doesn’t see partisan debate. So why do we?

The fact of the matter remains that there are people who need our help. For some reason, we are making excuses that cloud that idea. It’s absurd. I’ve heard the following over the past few weeks:

“They had their chance to get out, and they didn’t take it.”
“Now they’re playing the race card! Can you believe it?”
“They are savages. Shooting down the planes that are trying to help them.”
“Looting.”
“Stealing.”
“Ungrateful!”

The whole “blame the victim” game makes no sense. Hurricane warnings are a part of everyday life down there. No one knew that this would be the time the levy would break. I would’ve stayed too. And savages? Yes, the conditions are appalling at times, but these are human beings. We are all capable of the same good and of the same bad… hard to swallow, but it’s true.

Bottom line, they need our help. Let’s stop trying to find the scapegoat. Let’s stop debating just to hear ourselves talk. Let’s open our eyes to the bigger picture of the reality here… an unlucky natural disaster compounded with a slow government response and a very unfortunate population of human beings. By giving into the race argument, for example, we lower ourselves from what really matters. We’re wasting our energy on words that get us nowhere. Help now… do what you can, NOW. And let’s try to prevent this from happening again by getting our priorities as a country in order.