Monday, March 06, 2006

The realities of social strata hit Houston

Danny Carlton blogged From Newsweek...

...as devastating as Katrina has been for the administration, its impact has been far more visceral in those communities that received tens of thousands of evacuees overnight. In cities stretching from Atlanta to San Antonio, good will has often given way to the crude reality of absorbing a traumatized and sometimes destitute population. In Baton Rouge, which added 100,000 people to a pre-Katrina population of 225,000, residents bemoan the loss of the city's small-town feel and worry that trailer-park settlements will become permanent fixtures of blight. In Dallas, the city housing authority began offering rent vouchers to some of its 20,000 evacuees, only to become quickly overwhelmed and fail to pay landlords, prompting a number of eviction notices. But perhaps no city has been as convulsed as Houston, which took in the greatest number of survivors. As some see it, the city is suffering from "compassion fatigue." Public services are overwhelmed, city finances are strained and violent crime is on the rise.
Is that surprising? New Orleans was known for its crime problem relative to its size, and when criminals move to a new area they don't become good citizens.
When city leaders in New Orleans made comments two weeks ago suggesting that they wanted only hardworking evacuees to return,
The mayor certainly wants hard working blacks to return, because the "Chocolate" nature of New Orleans has become a lot whiter than it used to be, and he fears he will not be reeleted. If he is defeated, will that be because he is black, or because he did such a bad job as mayor.
some Houston city-council members erupted in protest—fearing that politicians in the Big Easy were trying to stick Houston with their undesirables.
It was not just Houston; they wanted to stick any other city with its undesirables. I have a good friend who did a lot to help the Katrina Evacuees that came to Tulsa, and she told me that of the 100 she has helped find housing , clothes, and furniture, only one has even looked for a job. The rest are content to mooch on food stamps and welfare. And I don't even know what color the 100 are. I know my friend, who is working so hard to help them, is black, but there were poor whites as well as poor blacks that left New Orleans after Katrina.
As unpleasant as the thought may be to many people, the truth remains that there will always be a segment of the population that drag on the rest. They'll demand much more than they'll ever be willing to give to society, and the rest of us will have to carry them. Unfortunately, politics being the nasty animal that it is, race has played a major role in our denial of that fact since the "victim mentality" the Civil Right Industry has perpetuated on Blacks in American has caused so many more of them to assume the world owes them a good time. While worshipping Martin Luther King, jr almost as a deity,
But ignoring what he said.
the Civil Rights Industry and their followers ignore his admonition that people should be judged by the content of the character, not the color of their skin. So when any group designated as socially undesirable contains a higher than desired number of Black people, it's assumed that the designation of the group is racist, in spite of the fact that it is the very content of character that creates the designation, not the color of skin.
Precisely. The black woman that I spoke of, who is helping 100 Katrina families, knows how much she is being taken advantage of, yet she continues to do everything she can to help them: taking them to doctor's appointments, etc. I judge her not by the color of her skin, but by her character, and in my opinion she is an Earth Angel; a human whose heart is so filled with God's love, that he can send them to do a job that he would otherwise have to send a Celestial Angel to do.
What's not being voice overly loud is the fact that those Black Americans who exemplify the best of America, have already risen above the tragedy of Katrina by their own ingenuity and hard work. They get little attention, and most have already returned to New Orleans.
And those that have found a better opportunity in another city and who have decided to stay there, will be an asset to that city.
It's sad that they should get so little attention because they not only are a credit to their race (oh, how I hate using that phrase, because it sounds so belittling) but they are a credit to all races, and America in general. Instead our attention is focused on those that remain under the care of other cities, stubbornly sitting and waiting until someone else comes along and does for them what they are more than capable of doing for themselves.

It's sad that what used to exist to help Black people has become the very thing that hurts them the most. It used to be that you could address the problem of those that demanded more from society than they were wiling to give, and eventually convince some to join the rest of us, making their lives better. But anymore to do so puts one at risk of being called a racist. The key to unlock the chains has been melted down and made into more chains.
The lazy poor are not limited to blacks; there are many lazy whites as well. But the lazy blacks can call you names when you point out they are lazy.

4 comments:

Danny Carlton said...

Don,
I set up haloscan on the test blog I use at blogger and kept sending trackbacks and adjusting MT until it went through. I had to set the Junk Score Threshold to -2 before it would accept a trackback from haloscan. Since the IP for haloscan doesn't match the IP for blogger, it considers it suspicious and gives it a "spam" score of -1. Meanwhile it seems to have no problem with posts titled "gay porn".

Anonymous said...

don singleton said:

It was not just Houston; they wanted to stick any other city with its undesirables. I have a good friend who did a lot to help the Katrina Evacuees that came to Tulsa, and she told me that of the 100 she has helped find housing , clothes, and furniture, only one has even looked for a job. The rest are content to mooch on food stamps and welfare. And I don't even know what color the 100 are. I know my friend, who is working so hard to help them, is black, but there were poor whites as well as poor blacks that left New Orleans after Katrina.

what point are you trying to make ... from your comfortable, middle class, new england, security cordoned home? these people have lost everything ... have you no compassion? if you have a dictionary (probaly in the servants quarters) look up empathy

Don Singleton said...

what point are you trying to make ...

I believe my points were very clear.

from your comfortable, middle class, new england, security cordoned home?

I am disabled, and hence retired, so I am not that sure how comfortable or middle class I am; I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, not new england, and I am not in a security cordoned neighborhood.

these people have lost everything

A lot did not have that much to start with.

... have you no compassion?

Yes I have compassion. In fact I listed my home on several websites as willing to take in Katrina refugees, but none took advantage of my offer. After I found out that only one of the 100 my friend was helping had even tried to find a job, and after hearing how the people put up in hotels were refusing to move out, I am happy my offer to share my house was not taken advantage of.

if you have a dictionary (probaly in the servants quarters) look up empathy

I dont have any servants, and I have both empathy and sympathy, but I can also recognize when people are taking advantage of everyone (individuals and governments) offering help.

Eric said...

Your opinion on this situation is very accurate about the feelings in Houston towards refugees from New Orleans.As a native Houstonian, I too am ready for these people to return to their homes and begin rebuilding thier lives. We have enough crime already in Houston, and it is ludicrous that anyone would expect for the cities that gave so generously in NO's time of need to gladly accept the burden of keeping NO's criminal element.