Originally Posted by: orangebloodBut the very nature of the writings posted are racist in tone.[/quote]
The first, yes.

However, spend some time in the rougher parts of New Orleans and you'll quickly understand where it comes from.

Originally Posted by: orangebloodFolks seemed to be ultimately concerned about some people not saying thank you to volunteers while glossing over the fact that our federal government headed by a fatty tumor of a president utterly failed to respond to the needs of American citizens.[/quote]
The President declared New Orleans a federal disaster area before the storm hit. That's never happened before in the history of our nation.

Now, lets consider some other things:

-The City of New Orleans never used the busses available to them to evacuate those who could not evacuate themselves before the storm (as per the Louisiana state guidelines). Most of those busses are in fact still under water.

-Neither Municipal nor State officials in Louisiana seem to have bothered to go through the correct channels to get FEMA aid. Rather, they waited for the storm to hit and then cried to the media. I don't know about you, but personally, I don't like the idea of the Federal Government being able to butt it's head into local or state business any time it feels like it.

Originally Posted by: orangebloodGuys and gals, we responded quicker to the tsunami victims in Asia than we did our own people. Those people were stuck in the superdome without proper water, food, sanitation, medical care, peace keeping staff and the like and this yutz is concerned with a thank you? One has to treat any testimony that states that one of the goals of volunteering is "warm fuzzies" with more than a fair share of Parsimony.[/quote]
I think people should help one another because it's the right thing to do.

I also feel that when somebody goes out of their way to help you, you should thank them because it's the right thing to do.


[QUOTE=orangeblood]It is absolutely laughable to me that a bunch of white people like us can sit around on our little guitar website and Kibbutz about the fact that those uneducated black people should just buck up and be solid upstanding citizens like we are.

Would you rather it was Malcom X?

Because he talked about African Americans needing to become more self-reliant and responsible citizens far more often and far more sharply than anybody here or the authors of any three of those pieces.


[QUOTE=orangeblood]The worst part is people attempting to excuse a racial slur that was used in the slave trade to marginalize the enslaved. Sure the N word means unenlightened and such; Is it any mystery though that this word was attached to black slaves? Not really if you know the history of the western world. In general, when we do/see something we don't like or feel wrong about we marginalize that wrong by marginalizing the afflicted. See a pattern here.

Yes, but I also know enough about recorded world history and patterns of language distribution to know that what you're talking about isn't even remotely limited to Western society.

That's not an excuse, but you can't fight something that you're not conscious of.


[QUOTE=orangeblood]We see thousands of people suffering because of inept response to the disaster from our pres on vacay so we have to circulate these stories about poor black savages. Get real people!

Again; blaming this all on the President is not only inaccurate, but doesn't help anything. There were several misteps on the local level that turned a slow Federal response from "annoying" and "inconvenient" into an outright catastrophy.

For another, in all demographics of American society, there is a sub-culture of racism and ignorance often mixed with welfare dependancy that has to be confronted because it drags the lot of us down. We all like to ignore it because it is ugly and we'd all rather think it isn't that big of a problem or that if we don't think about it, it'll be OK or that we ourselves are somehow racist or evil for recognizing that it exists.

But, just as there are some towns in the South that still have segregated schools and open Klan meetings, if I were to break down or make a wrong turn into the wrong part of Baton Rouge or New Orleans (or any number of other large cities), I could kiss my valuables and possibly my life goodbye for no other reason than the fact that I'm white.

If racism is wrong when it goes one way, then it's also wrong when it goes the other. It's detestable, it's a plauge upon us all, but we're NEVER going to stomp it out unless we recognize it, we can discuss it openly and we can fight it in ALL segments of society.