ON THE RELEVANCE OF DEEDS

During a visit today to New Orleans, El Presidente said that the unprecedented slowness of his administration’s response to the Katrina disaster was not racially motivated.

Gee, thanks. I am relieved, and rejoiced.

But for the sake of argument – would he have actually said otherwise? “Folks, I just thought you should know that we at the White House took our time indeed. We just could not bring ourselves to sweat in order to help these poor, black people of New Orleans. I mean, what for? You help them once, and then they go downhill all over again. Hell, they even caused the whole damn tragedy to happen! It is their fault anyway!!”

Yeah, right. And by the way, I also have serious doubts about whoever posed the question to him.

And now, to be perfectly honest – this administration would respond in the same ineffective fashion if Katrina had stricken all-white Christian rural Kansas instead. My take is: they simply don’t care. Or even if they do, they are so far removed from the reality of this country that they can of no actual help.

True: the white, more affluent people of New Orleans did not suffer as much – they left the city on their own because they, for the most part, had the means to do so. The fact that the black, poor part of town was so tragically affected by Katrina was not so much a consequence of this administration’s interpretation of equality (which is shady, no doubt) but more so a reflection of the currently widening socio-economic disparities across the United States population. Sadly, Americans can, through Katrina and its horrific aftermath, catch a glimpse of the Third World on their own soil.

But then again, if the dark side of New Orleans was laid bare by the catastrophe, so was El Presidente's dark side. I wonder what he will do next; between not reading the papers (or anything else for that matter), not watching the news, and not taking any really significant action (unless one considers getting rid of FEMA's Michael Brown significant and not only predictable) - if he actually does anything at all, I guess it could be seen as an improvement of sorts. I'll sit and wait.