why did the American government treat their own so badly?

Question

i watched the spike lee documentary on "katrina" and was digusted to see they way the goverment left them to die

i know they were told to leave but most of them were to poor to do so, but were not offered any help

i was distressed to see after the hurricane, the dead bodies floating around and swelling up in the water, they were left there like amimals.

i was almost in tears when i watched the part of the 5 children left alone while their dead mother was on the bed.

has the programme been shown in the usa

Answer 1

If the Associated Press could get in, why couldn't FEMA?

The reporters from WWL-TV were out there rescuing people from their rooftops--why couldn't FEMA?

CNN got in with the satellite trucks and the operators gave everything they had on board to people who hadn't eaten in days--where the heck was FEMA? Jim Cantore was and he freaking STAYED for weeks, if not months, to help out---but FEMA? Ray Andrewsen, my former GM at WQUN-AM went for two weeks right after he and his friends got the supplies together to do what they could.

The only reason I can think of why FEMA wasn't in there beforehand is because they didn't care. Read the National Weather Service report---it was obvious what would happen, yet they didn't care. To them, it was just another stable of poor people who didn't matter. If those of us in the media can get up off our derrieres and do it, why can't the agency that is SUPPOSED to do these things? Something is rotten in Denmark.

Answer 2

The issue of race and class divisions in this country have festered so long that its almost impossible for anyone to have a rational discussion of it nowadays.

Nothing happens collectively that is not the fault of the collective. Thus, the government failed to respond properly and quickly. But, honestly, when doesn't the government fail to respond properly and quickly? The bureaucracy of any government is such that almost always it will bungle in any disaster situation. Look at how poorly understood was the instructural integrity of the twin towers on 9/11. Disasters require quick decisions and quicker determinations, and bureaucracies fail abysmally in that department.

However, in terms of long-term planning and understanding, that is exactly what they are created for. So, even if the government failed in the immediacy of the act, it is still responsible for exploring questions that promoted or expanded the tragedy: why were the levees weaker in sections that predominantly buttressed lower-income areas? Why were the vast majority of people living below river level poor and black? Why has reconstruction been so slow in occuring in those areas?

My take on it is that white New Orleans used this opportunity to 'clean house'. The longer the delays and renovations and such, the less likely it is for the poor black people to return to the city, since they will become more acclimated in their new situations.

In some ways, this is a good thing, simply for the fact that many evacuees have moved into better situations. But it's bad in the fact that, in dispersing the population, the vibrancy of such community is threatened. When people come back, will the property values skyrocket, preventing them from doing so, forcing them into the areas around New Orleans, perhaps creating new 9th Wards, only even more dangerous?

After any disaster, there is always cries of 'we could have done more'; the more relevant question is will we learn enough, and prepare ourselves enough, to do more?

Answer 3

I didn't see this programme but have seen another similar. I agree, it is absolutely shocking that these scenes happened in the richest country on the planet, a country that can afford to wage a war in the Middle East but cannot afford to compensate its own citizens for a natural disaster.

I also find it incomprehensible how quickly the destruction was cleared up after 9/11 and yet more than a year after Katrina there are still people sleeping in shelters and no proper sanitation.

Quite clearly, money talks. It would have been interesting to see if Katrina had hit LA or New York how quickly those areas would have been re-generated. I bet they wouldn't still be waiting for running water or some electricity to see by.

Answer 4

I saw this documentary as well and I was stunned to say the least, it was horrible what those people had to live through, and even now the area is still not being rebuilt. The area that is considered the business district has been repaired but the area where the poor live, that area is still in shambles. I also recently heard where some of those projects or houses in the low income area is unfit to live in and they want to tear them down and rebuild newer and better housing. The people from the area is fighting this due to not wanting to have to find somewhere else to live while they are being re-built and some do not have anywhere else to live. It is a very sad situation and it right here in our country.

Answer 5

I've been saying this all along but just get loads of thumbs down from Americans with their heads in the sand. if their government cared half as much about it's own people as it does Foreigners then there would have been no problem. How much of that was caused by the fact the people were mostly Black and poor?

Answer 6

only because they were blacks.