Human Disgrace - Thoughts on Katrina
HOME /
Mama Followed Me to Florida /
How The Internet Ate My Brain /
The Accidental Voter /
Run Like the Wind /
Squash and Spray Paint /
Just the Facts, Ma'am /
The Heart is a Lonely Runner /
Socks and Scissors /
Human Disgrace - Thoughts on Katrina /
Decisive Moments - Original Photography /
Southern Exposures I - Original Photography /
Southern Exposures II - The Slide Show /
Tampa Bay in Living Color - Original Photography /
Contact Me /
THE TAMPA TRIBUNE
There aren’t enough words in the English language to
describe the horrors the people on the Gulf Coast have
experienced from hurricane Katrina. Akin to the
horror is the anger so many of us have felt at the
“unacceptable” efforts by our federal government to
help these people. There’s a lot to be angry about,
too much to list in this short space, so I’ll just
talk about one thing, one very big thing, that made me
angry this week.
Ignorant racist, rebel flag waving, often gun toting
white people. Some of them wearing the uniforms
reflecting their jobs as public servants, as
protectors, as the police, as Americans.
It makes me sick to hear the stories of ignorant white
people barricading themselves with guns in their
houses and rolling racial slurs off their tongues when
asked what they’re afraid of. Imagine being afraid of
another human being who has nothing more than the
clothes on his back, no home to go back to, who can do
nothing more than rely on the kindness of strangers
for a drink of water or a meal.
As most of you know, I grew up in Alabama---not
exactly a hotbed of cultural tolerance.
When I was a kid, in our all white neighborhood, there
was one black family who lived up the hill in a white
frame house deep in the piney woods. Every Halloween
three or four of us would don homemade costumes and
walk up the red dirt road in the dark with our
flashlights to the front door. If we could only get
to one house for our treats we knew we had to make it
there. “Brita” was the lady of the house. She was
old, probably in her eighties, and when she opened the
door she was face to face with the smallest of our
scraggly bunch, usually me.
In truth she was much taller but because she’d taking
in ironing all her life, she was bowed over so that
when she sat her chin nearly touched her knees. Her
eyes would smile up at us and she’d wave us inside.
Two other men lived there, her husband, whose name I
can’t remember, and “Bill”. Bill never spoke but
he’d shake his cane at us kids, in a friendly
greeting, when he walked down the hill everyday to
pick up his mail. Brita would empty entire bags of
candy---the good candy too, a lot of chocolate, into
our plastic pumpkins or paper sacks.
It didn’t occur to us back then that we were the only
kids to “trick or treat” at their house.
Most years they dropped apples and oranges in, too.
They made sure that when we left they had no more
candy to give. They gave us everything they had---a
ragged bunch of little white kids who never did one
good deed for them.
I know we said thank you, cause if we hadn’t mama
would have found out when she asked me and she’d make
us march right back up that hill.
Television has shown us enormous acts of kindness,
like the Mormon church members in Utah who’ve opened
up their homes to black families. But I’ve also read
grumblings from those concerned about their land
values going down because of black families moving in
to stay with white families.
In this issue of black and white, there is a lot of
gray. Every one of us is influenced consciously and
unconsciously by every past encounter we’ve had, and
whether those encounters were based in love or in fear
is the impression left in our psyches. But to prepare
and expect bad things to happen based on the color of
someone’s skin and negative stereotypes is no way to
live.
I promised to talk about just one thing that made me
angry, but I have to mention this. “Bush doesn’t care
about whites or blacks”, a black entertainer said on a
recent news broadcast. I think if a disaster of
this size had happened in say, Kennebunkport Maine, or
Jackson Hole Wyoming federal help would have made its
way through the quagmire of bureaucracy, blocked
roads, and whatever logistical obstacles, a whole lot
quicker.
Anyone who doesn’t think that, raise your hand.
For information on an organization fighting the good
fight against intolerance and injustice check out:
www.splc.org.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery Alabama
is internationally known for its tolerance education
programs, legal victories against white supermacists,
and its tracking of hate groups.
describe the horrors the people on the Gulf Coast have
experienced from hurricane Katrina. Akin to the
horror is the anger so many of us have felt at the
“unacceptable” efforts by our federal government to
help these people. There’s a lot to be angry about,
too much to list in this short space, so I’ll just
talk about one thing, one very big thing, that made me
angry this week.
Ignorant racist, rebel flag waving, often gun toting
white people. Some of them wearing the uniforms
reflecting their jobs as public servants, as
protectors, as the police, as Americans.
It makes me sick to hear the stories of ignorant white
people barricading themselves with guns in their
houses and rolling racial slurs off their tongues when
asked what they’re afraid of. Imagine being afraid of
another human being who has nothing more than the
clothes on his back, no home to go back to, who can do
nothing more than rely on the kindness of strangers
for a drink of water or a meal.
As most of you know, I grew up in Alabama---not
exactly a hotbed of cultural tolerance.
When I was a kid, in our all white neighborhood, there
was one black family who lived up the hill in a white
frame house deep in the piney woods. Every Halloween
three or four of us would don homemade costumes and
walk up the red dirt road in the dark with our
flashlights to the front door. If we could only get
to one house for our treats we knew we had to make it
there. “Brita” was the lady of the house. She was
old, probably in her eighties, and when she opened the
door she was face to face with the smallest of our
scraggly bunch, usually me.
In truth she was much taller but because she’d taking
in ironing all her life, she was bowed over so that
when she sat her chin nearly touched her knees. Her
eyes would smile up at us and she’d wave us inside.
Two other men lived there, her husband, whose name I
can’t remember, and “Bill”. Bill never spoke but
he’d shake his cane at us kids, in a friendly
greeting, when he walked down the hill everyday to
pick up his mail. Brita would empty entire bags of
candy---the good candy too, a lot of chocolate, into
our plastic pumpkins or paper sacks.
It didn’t occur to us back then that we were the only
kids to “trick or treat” at their house.
Most years they dropped apples and oranges in, too.
They made sure that when we left they had no more
candy to give. They gave us everything they had---a
ragged bunch of little white kids who never did one
good deed for them.
I know we said thank you, cause if we hadn’t mama
would have found out when she asked me and she’d make
us march right back up that hill.
Television has shown us enormous acts of kindness,
like the Mormon church members in Utah who’ve opened
up their homes to black families. But I’ve also read
grumblings from those concerned about their land
values going down because of black families moving in
to stay with white families.
In this issue of black and white, there is a lot of
gray. Every one of us is influenced consciously and
unconsciously by every past encounter we’ve had, and
whether those encounters were based in love or in fear
is the impression left in our psyches. But to prepare
and expect bad things to happen based on the color of
someone’s skin and negative stereotypes is no way to
live.
I promised to talk about just one thing that made me
angry, but I have to mention this. “Bush doesn’t care
about whites or blacks”, a black entertainer said on a
recent news broadcast. I think if a disaster of
this size had happened in say, Kennebunkport Maine, or
Jackson Hole Wyoming federal help would have made its
way through the quagmire of bureaucracy, blocked
roads, and whatever logistical obstacles, a whole lot
quicker.
Anyone who doesn’t think that, raise your hand.
For information on an organization fighting the good
fight against intolerance and injustice check out:
www.splc.org.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery Alabama
is internationally known for its tolerance education
programs, legal victories against white supermacists,
and its tracking of hate groups.
©2005