It is not often in this country, even on public radio, that we hear frank and lucid talk about the structural forces that created and continue to maintain black ghettos in the United States. Sometimes, we seem too steeped in individualist rhetoric and moralistic judgements to talk about and begin to address the intentional and […]
a prayer band
every thing
you ever paid for
you ever worked on
you ever received
every thing
you ever gave away
you ever held on to
you ever forgot about
every single thing is one
of every single thing and all
things are gone
every thing i can think to do
to say i feel
is buoyant
every thing is below water
every thing is eroding
every thing is hungry
there is […]
What would it take to truly repair the lives of African Americans, other peoples of color, and poor people after Katrina? Could this be an opportunity to create a model for society as it could be? A racially just society? What about the native peoples who preceded Europeans along the gulf? Is […]
Compassionate conservatives? Family values? Expert governance?
Thulani Davis, in “Unbearable Crime on the Mississippi” at BlackCommentator.com, 9/8/05, draws on Jesse Jackson’s witness to the devastation as looking into the bottom of a slave ship. The importance of his metaphor–and other poetry that conveys the loss of one’s family along side the recognition that help is not coming–is for white people […]
As reported in the Wall Street Journal today, rich white people own, run, and will rebuild New Orleans in their own image.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it strikes me that as a nation, the U.S. still isn’t very good about talking about issues of race and class, and more to the point, isn’t very good talking about structures and policies and their impact on people’s lives.
With a sickening callousness equal to that of the former French queen’s, note the mother of the president’s response to visiting the Astrodome excerpted from “Barbara Bush: Relocation is “‘Working Very Well For Them,’” DemocracyNow.org, 9/6/05 and “Barbara Bush Makes Hurricane Gaff“, TVNew Zealand, TVNZ.CO.NZ, 9/7/05
While the federal government has been widely criticized for its […]
During a live, televised charity for Katrina victims, a bit of inconvenient truth somehow managed to escape…
In his article, “From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy” at NYTimes.com, 9/2/05 David Gonzales writes, “But for many African-American leaders, there is a growing outrage that many of those still stuck at the center of this tragedy were people who for generations had been pushed to the margins of society.” (1) This […]