IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

I got this in an email and it made me think. Read it and give me your opinion


Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - Moral poverty Cost Blacks in New Orleans - 1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson

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, you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.

No longer. When 75 percent of New Orleans residents had left the city, it was primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out. This, as we know, did not turn out good results.

Enter Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. 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.

Of course, if these two were really serious about laying blame on government, they should blame the local one. Responsibility to perform legally and practically fell first on the mayor of New Orleans. We are now all familiar with Mayor Ray Nagin the black Democrat who likes to yell at President Bush for failing to do Nagin's job. The facts, unfortunately, do not support Nagin's wailing. As the Washington Times puts it, "recent reports show [Nagin] failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city."

One wonders how there was "no way" for these people to evacuate the city. We have photographic evidence telling us otherwise. You've probably seen it by now the photo showing 2,000 parked school buses, unused and underwater. How much planning does it require to put people on a bus and leave town, Mayor Nagin?

Instead of doing the obvious, Mayor Nagin (with no positive contribution from Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the other major leader vested with responsibility to address the hurricane disaster) loaded remaining New Orleans residents into the Superdome and the city's convention center. We know how that plan turned out.

About five years ago, in a debate before the National Association of Black Journalists, I stated that if whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

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.

All Americans must tell blacks this truth. It was blacks' moral poverty not their material poverty that cost them dearly in New Orleans. Farrakhan, Jackson, and other race hustlers are to be repudiated for they will only perpetuate this problem by stirring up hatred and applauding moral corruption. New Orleans, to the extent it is to be rebuilt, should be remade into a dependency-free, morally strong city where corruption is opposed and success is applauded. Blacks are obligated to help themselves and not depend on the government to care for them. We are all obligated to tell them so.


The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."

__________________
Anything is possible under the Sun

you know that would NEVER happen!

in any event, I feel as though the writer brought up some good points, however the shock and awe affect used in his essay is not needed considering the segment of the population he's targeting with his words wouldn't even read it.

To my response to that article, the author is only speaking on the surface and is not taking into consideration that FEMA did nto alert and gave accurate information to the Governing body of New Orleans. They thought that this storm will not be all that big when in fact it was a category 5 huricane. 2nd, his assumption that all blacks in the DOME are nothing more but ghetto ppl is inaccurate when the DOME is filled with different types of ppl.

I am sure the same situation would occur in a majority white city with all different types of characters. So the author to base his judgements as to say all the BLACKS in the DOME are from the ghetto, welfare recpients is clearly a racist remark spoken in an unconcious tone. Now if he were to say SOME rather than ALL then the "racist remark" would not have been labeled on the author and it also shows the narrow mind set in the article.

Just recently the was a huricane in Florida and the government acted swiftly in providing help. So in New Orleans sistuation. why that very same swiftness was not implemented in New Orleans? why did it have to take 5 days before government help arrive? even though a military unit could have been easily dispatched to the area with in mins throught the use of the militarys black hawk helicopters?

Also the author is not taking into consideration that the New Orleans police department is filled with Police Officers who has criminal records and are majority white? Why is that? Why is an individual with a criminal record be able to serve in a police department?

These are some of many questions i would ask the author.

Plus that these very same officers killed unarm black civilians and there was complete lawlessness in the DOME with no type of LAW Enforcement. So for the Author to say BLACKS are this and that is tottally untrue and the same situation would occur in any LAWLESSNESS state either black, white, brown,green or yellow.

__________________
STAG, goat and rice.

I'm good.

http://www.islandmix.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=3345

http://www.islandmix.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&page=2&ppuser=25586

The author is a retard.

After reading the whole thing I'd like to see a link from a credible source.

The author has shown himself to be a simple-minded buffoon.

this article is profused with many themes, with the overwhelming is responsibility. to convey that message, he provided a short narrative of what black men of yesteryear would have done before and after a hurricane. in the process of conveying that message, the author castigated black men of today in new orlean, and the low income citizens of the city.

but what he fails to recognize is that a government is responsible for all its citizens. that being the case, the government was negligent in its response to the worse human disaster the country's history. had that been the response of other governments, the entire gov would have resigned. this gov failed its citizens.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/peterson.asp

And yea, authored by a retard would be a good way to describe this drivel. First he blames "immoral" residents for not leaving the city and waiting "for the government to bail them out", then 2 paragraphs later he tells us Mayor Nagin was in fact to blame for not putting them on buses and evacuating them. Why bother criticizing the gross oversimplification of facts from someone who can't even develop one point without contradicting himself.

His article could have been worded much better but the main message is true. I don't hear him trying to excuse the fact that the neither the federal nor local gov't acted as it should, most ppl agree on that. Regardless of that fact though, if that were a different segment of the population, their response at the time would have been different and they would have taken the time AFTERWARDS to complain about the gov't lack of action. Further, how a ppl act in time of disaster says a lot about them...everyone is stressed, tired, hungry, cramped etc at the dome -instead of able bodied men looking out for and helping women with kids who don't have a man them, they looking to rape, steal, fight etc. You can't honestly claim that all segments of the population would have dealt with that situation in that way. Sometimes one has to face the ugly facts.

no.

The main "message" is that low income African-Americans in New Orleans are ungodly and immoral. True? Pffff.

It's real easy for us to sit here and say who should have helped who....it's real easy for us to sit and classify every single human left back in N.O. as a subhuman thief and rapist.....it's real easy for us to use the actions of a few to paint everyone.....real easy for us to say how easy it would've been for everyone to make it thru unscathed.

In other words, it's real easy for us to stereotype, over-generalize, race-bait, over-simplify, and arm-chair quarterback.

help women and kids do what? these men are just as helpless as the women and the kids.

that was a dire situation, one that required an agency or a group with an abundance of resources. the government are possession of such resources and it failed miserably.

you don't think that there was raping, stealing, and fighting during the Great Depression?you don't think similiar things accured during and after WW11?

those events were also dire situation, situations beyond human comprehension. but check the government's response to those human disasters and then compare government responses then to the bush administration's to katrina.