Je me souviens
Well, I have avoided posting because I wasn't quite sure what to say. And I'm still not sure. But for those of you who may have wondered about me or my family I figured I'd post nonetheless. This is not going to be entertaining, but I need to get it out while I remember and for the future
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I wanted to watch the recent Oprah show which showed her on location but from others I heard it was a very disturbing taping to see. So I don't think I can bother to watch it if there will be a reshowing.
A woman on my discussion board summed up some of the emotions I have because it is -simply UNREAL- how this situation is being (un)dealt with by Bush, the government, etc:
"This was my response on another board when someone complained about showing dead bodies on the broadcasts from New Orleans:
Yes, Katrina was a natural disaster, but what happened to those people is patently unnatural. Essentially because of classism and racism in this country, those people were left there to die. They should never have been left in New Orleans in the first place. So yes, something quite horrific was done to them, and America, which is always so quick to inflict this type of pain, somehow wants to turn their head in horror from seeing the results of its own callous indifference. It's much like the brouhaha over showing people being executed under capital punishment. Folks foam at the mouth that it should be done, but clamor away at the suggestion that executions be broadcast. If you're all for capital punishment and think its the right thing, then why don't you want to see it carried out?
This is what happens in a country when we allow ourselves to be divided into red states/blue states, rich/poor, black/white. This only serves to keep the corpocracy running and making their all so important profit, but we're so busy fighting one another over the scraps that we don't see the big picture. This is not my America. This is not the America that I was willing to die for when I served my country so proudly for six years. Somehow along the way to capitalist glory we forgot who we are. Will we ever come back to ourselves, and regain our humanity? I don't know, but right now this is not my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. For the first time in my life, I'm ashamed to call myself an American. And this morning I took down my American flag from the front porch. Through all my disagreements with various American policies, I've flown my flag proudly, now I've returned it to its case, probably never to be flown again. My heart is broken in a way I never thought to experience. This is not my America the beautiful.
When Oprah showed the inside of the Super Dome I had a flash of memory, but couldn't for the life of me recall what it reminded me of. This morning at 3:00 a.m. I suddenly came awake. The memory was so horrifying I woke my husband in tears. It reminded me of a drawing I saw once of the interior of a slave ship. The shafts of light from the broken ceiling pierced the darkness, just like in the drawing. I imagined thousands of my people crammed in there in their own excrement with predators all around waiting to rape their children. I never thought I'd ever again see black people dying in their own waste in the darkness in this country. And what's even more disgusting is that once again the same factors played primary roles; race and class.
The horror was amplified by my familiarity with the sight of the Super Dome. I've been there countless times for Bayou Classics and Sugar Bowls. Passed it more times than I could count on my many trips to the city. To see a place of such fun and joy turned into a torture chamber and morgue for so many thousands of my people, evoked a horror that I still have not shaken. Dear Goddess, if this is not a crime against humanity, I don't know what the hell is."
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Now Bush is denying that race could have had anything to do with how the situation was handled. I don't even see what the point was in even asking him. Like he was going to fess up or something?
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