Earlier this year I received an email forwarded to me by a conservative uncle. The email contained the rantings of anti-civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Below is my belated reply.
Dear Uncle,
I usually don't reply to your emails, but I couldn't ignore this one. The appended article you forwarded to me by the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson demonizes poor black people for being hurricane victims -- since when is that a Christian value?
Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:
- What would you do?
- What would you do if you were black?
Sadly, the two questions don't have the same answer.
To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.
For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.
Yes, many people thought they could buckle down and survive Katrina because that's what they always have done with bad storms. They didn't think "when my home is flooded, FEMA will pick me up in a boat, and I'll get some free water." The levees had not broken in recent memory, and many people didn't think it would get that bad. Hell, even the President claimed that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees.
Of course, many people did realize that Katrina could flood the city, but how can you say that those who could not leave are to blame for the pathetic FEMA response? I can send you highly researched article about how, under the leadership of James Lee Witt, FEMA went from being scorned to being praised for its relief successes in the 90s. I remember when Bush and Gore boasted about traveling with Witt to disaster sites. But after September 11th, the previous Congress moved FEMA under the umbrella of The Department of Homeland Security. Bush appointed avery under-qualified Michael D. Brown to head FEMA. And then they underfunded it and changed its focus from natural disasters to terrorist attack response.
And you can blame the past several administrations for not making sure the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers had the right leadership and funding to fortify the levees properly. And you can blame the Mayor and Governor for not doing enough to get people out and prepare. There is blame to go all around.
Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect: Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.
The overblown accusations that Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan may make has no bearing on the fact that FEMA and Homeland Security dropped the ball on Katrina -- and yes, that cost black people's lives. Why do all these types of letters mention Sharpton, Jackson etc? Is that to distract people from the uncomfortable facts? To get our blood boiling? Yea, it's all about personalities, perception and spin.
President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.
How can a black man of God make such a sweeping statement about his own people? It's outrageous! President Bush is responsible for his own rampant immorality -- as in starting a war with a country that never attacked us, and was not a real threat. Where is Rev. Peterson's outraged letter about the thousands of dead troops and civilians in Iraq thanks to the lies of George W. Bush?
And finally, I ask you -- is the black face on the letter to make whites feel good about agreeing with the racist message? I think so. Sean Hannity's face on Peterson's website sends an unmistakable message to white folk: here's a black man who will carry our water for us. And indeed he does.
Ralph
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