True Sadness

Living here in the South it has become apparent to me that racism is not necessarily dead, yet. Talking with people about the aftereffects of hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the horrible human tragedy that continues to unfold, I have heard many references to "those people" and "returning to their jungle roots." Yes, it is a fact that the majority of those on television are African-American in origin. And because of this, they are most likely the ones toting guns and shooting at helicopters and the police and raping one another. But lets take a step back and eliminate race altogether. Is there something else that could be a common denominator here besides race?

Most who stayed fall into 2 categories- those who were too stubborn to leave or those who had no means or were to frail to leave. This first group is most likely smaller and now and probably very sorry for their decision to stay, and are stuck in a hard place. The second group accounts for more of those who are now causing the trouble, mostly. Surely, those that are too frail are now almost certainly not living any more with the onset of disease and heat slowly picking them off one by one. However, those remaining in this group have a lot of the same characteristics- low education, low socio-economic status, and yes, race. But remember, we are throwing that last characteristic out right now.

So where would you find those in America's society that function with lives based on low-education and low SES? They are typically in high concentration, low quality housing and living from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Most don't own a car, and rely solely on public transportation for what trips they do make. That means, in the case of New Orleans, we had a lot of poor, poorly educated people in a very confined space without the ability to leave in the path of the oncoming hurricane. They were confined in what was supposed to be a safe haven- the Superdome- to weather the storm, and that failed. You add in the breaking of levees and the onrush of rising water, and now you have a lot of poor, poorly educated people worried about their lives. That translates easily into the fight or flight mechanism of emotions, with anger at others (those in authority) who supposedly moved them into a safe location, easily trumping the notion that they did have some control over their circumstances, only that responsibility came many years before when they dropped out of school, either by their choice or by other circumstances. So, it must be the government's fault right? Especially in today's me-first society.

Now, a parallel must be drawn with this population. What if this had happened in Phoenix, where I am originally from? Would the same effect have occurred? Certainly you have a lot of poor, poorly educated people living in high concentration housing in a rather small geographic space. Had they been evacuated to the Bank One Ballpark downtown, only to see a hurricane destroy what they had thought to be safe, would they be creating a mob scene, trying to escape and fearing for their lives? You bet they would. Except they would be mostly Hispanic in origin.

See, it has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with SES and educational level. We need to worry less about skin color- that includes those who live in colored skin- and start looking at the sociological reasons that Hispanics in Phoenix or African-Americans in New Orleans or Gypsies in EU are living with these circumstances and rectify that sociological barrier. Instead of throwing money at people through welfare and any other federal program, we need to instead instill a shift in thinking such that both education and work are valued by these different cultures (yes cultures, not races, because this is a fiber in the cultural identity that needs to change) such that they can remove themselves from this lifestyle that is slowly but surely perpetuating itself with each iteration of generations.