"Between The Lines"
Anthony Asadullah Samad

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Blacks Role In The Katrina Recovery Effort:
America Got Us Lookin' "Real Crazy" Right Now

Being Black in America is always such a convolution of emotions; Patriotism versus Nationalism, Nation loyalty versus Race loyalty, Duty to God's law versus the Compromise of Man's law, tolerance versus temperament, appreciation versus frustration, advocacy versus silence, and it goes on and on. Black Americans are not the only ones who have these conflictions of emotion. We just tend to have them more frequently, and more intensely, largely because we're more often put in "the squeeze" of having to balance the "real" with the "surreal," the optimism of a better life with reality of a compromised life, pessimism that things aren't changing fast enough with pragmatism that things are changing (sufficient or not), and the sincerity that people trying to do something with the hypocrisy of those who can do more aren't doing nearly enough. Black America, most often doesn't know where to turn to address its problems, and who to turn to in search of solutions. So when catastrophe hit us-as individuals, or in the collective-we search for help from outside our communities and from within, knowing that what is done will be done out of either sincerity, frustration, or outrage, while making black people real crazy in the process. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, America, principally the government and the media, got us lookin' real crazy right now. The role the rest of us play will be crucial in the days to come.

It's time for all of Black America to step up to demonstrate that we're not as crazy as they're trying to make us look. Part of trying to make the poor and afflicted look crazy, is you can't do so without lookin' crazy yourself. Asking such asinine questions like, "Why didn't people leave?," and "Why are people looting?," and then when they want to leave, they are left on freeway overpasses and out in the middle of nowhere, and you wonder why the rest wait forced evacuation. Leaving hasn't been any safer then stayin'. Over-reporting "the negative" has accentuated already horrible circumstances solely for the purposely of dehumanizing those left behind. Reports of raping, when none has been substantiated (and only a few "attempts" have been substantiated), created an environment of fear and hostility to conditions of darkness and uncertainty. Reports of shooting, while sad, are also signs of fear and hostility-people protecting property-and conflicts of the underworld that don't stop, even as the world (New Orleans as we knew it) stop, yet was not a factor in rescue attempts. Non-action on the part of the government was the principle factor in rescue attempts, and that wasn't reported until the fifth day. Even black leadership didn't step up until the fifth day when they started calling black people, "refugees," and it became obvious that Mayor Nagin's distress calls and legitimate accusations of racism were true and merited. Nagin played the ultimate "race card" when it needed to be played, because he was right-an affluent white community would have received help sooner. Even white people of goodwill have been offended at the slow response to New Orleans, and knew, despite their casual sensibilities on race, that race was a factor. Not until Oprah showed up-did the nature of the reporting change, did black leadership show up, en masse-abet it be for a photo op (which Nagin also called), and did the "craziness" stop, affording black evacuees some compassion, and sense of humanity and dignity in their time of crisis. Regardless what you might say about Oprah Winphrey, she has a way of making folk, particularly white folk, act right. Even Ted Koppel, and his third place, Nightline pulled top ratings for his expressed outrage over the inhumanity and the racial injustice of the relief effort. Whites impacted by the hurricane and the floods were never separated from their humanity-and made to look crazy-in the midst of madness. Just us.

President Bush, in the meantime, already looking crazy from his slow response, decided 10 days later to push an emergency funding package, $61 billion, through Congress, while removing his FEMA director in the recovery effort for butt-scratching a whole week (for really finding out that he didn't have the experience to lead a major disaster recovery after finding out he was nothing more than an intern equivalent instead of the assistant city manager his resume stated at the time of his appointment). We didn't need a resume to know that Michael Brown didn't know what the hell he was doing, but the episode only added credence to how crazy his inexperience made everybody look. Then, the process Bush and FEMA announced to get money to the evacuees, debit cards with a $2,000 stipend, was stopped after two days and with thousands of people in line-making us look real crazy. FEMA, instead, will make the stipends direct deposit into a person's bank account. Of course, we all have our bank account numbers memorized, and the five pieces of I.D. we're always asked for when we show up to our money in a neighborhood not own. You know that situation goin' to get real crazy, right? Then, as always, the level of insensitivity to the poor on the part of the government never ceases to exist, as those without bank accounts-which are still a significant number of Blacks-will have even a harder time getting relief assistance.

Blacks, historically, have never gotten their fair share out of government assisted relief efforts, whether it was Freedman Bureau assistance after the civil, National Recovery Assistance during the Great Depression (the NRA was known to Blacks as standing for "Negro Run Around," or "Negroes Ruined Again"), riot relief of the 1960s [and 1990s] recovery efforts-even natural disasters, such as the 1994 Northridge earthquake, where Blacks were among the last to be paid, were paid less, or not at all-but we could always count on government to make us look crazy. The Katrina Aftermath is just the latest example of what we've always experienced, and when someone, like Kanye West, says something about it-with more than a hint of truth-folk want to chastise him. We know the deal, and now all of America knows the deal.

We, as Black Americans, have to step up like never before, in contributions, donations, giving up rooms in our homes, to help our people while they're in the process of being "helped." And pray that agencies like the Red Cross, who hasn't done a good job of finding us in the past, overcomes its dysfunction and gets the help where it's needed. We can help and stop the craziness.

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