Africa Say's America's Response to Katrina is Racist

[RWalker]

(I think all of us are pleased that our people in Africa love and care about us in such a profound way -- in spite of the enormous problems they still confront in Africa. It warms my heart, and I know it warms yours also.)


Africa says slow Bush response to Hurricane Katrina was 'racist'



Africa has slammed the Bush administration's slow response to the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, a poor and mainly black area, saying it revealed the "racist" character of American society.

"Washington, in a bizarre display of uncaring aloofness in their hour of need, appeared unable to respond to the crisis until days later," the Johannesburg-based The Star newspaper said in an editorial Tuesday.

"The disaster also revealed the racial fissures in American society. Most of the hapless survivors who filled New Orlean's Superdome were black, with the more affluent white residents able to flee in their SUVs (sports utility vehicles) before Katrina brought her misery," it added.

Katrina left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and possibly up to 10,000 dead after it swept through the Gulf of Mexico coastal region Monday, causing devastation to New Orleans.

US President George W. Bush has been lambasted for a lag in dispatching troops and relief supplies to the afflicted region despite graphic television images of chaos and neglect.

"The fact that New Orleans is a southern town predominantly populated by African-Americans... explains why President George W. Bush did not see the need to cut short his holiday... being in America does not make a black man an American," Zimbabwe's state-run Herald daily wrote.

Zimbabwe's acting information minister, Chen Chimutengwende, said "the position of the black people (in the United States) has always been a very sad case".

"This hurricane has once more exposed the racism of the American administration against black people because if it had been white people affected they would have moved faster and there is no reason why Bush could not have done so in his own country," Chimutengwende said.

A Kenyan foreign affairs official said: "There is no evidence to prove that the US government delayed to assist the people of New Orleans because they were blacks, but given the history of the United States, everything points at racial profiling."

"But at the moment, unless we are given a watertight excuse, it is racism at its worst. It is a lesson to minorities in the US and other rich countries," he added, speaking anonymously.

In Rwanda, opinion was divided, with some linking the slow response to racism while others believe it was because the New Orleans population was poor.

"My initial reaction is that there was a racist element," a government official said.

"The Bush administration is doing everything in its power to convince people that was not the case but it is too late. They seem embarrassed on the subject."

Angolan radio interviewed academic Mario Pinto de Andrade who said the sluggish relief effort was a serious indictment against Bush, especially since his government knew that New Orleans was geographically more at risk to be hit severely.
In Morocco, the Opinion daily drew a parallel between Katrina and the famine in Niger, saying assistance usually depended on "the area, the race and perhaps the religion".

The African Union (AU) expressed concern at the disaster, saying the aftermath would be hard to deal with.

"We are not indifferent. Hurricane Katrina struck a very important partner of the AU and a region which is inhabited by our diaspora," said Adam Thiam, spokesman for the president of the AU Commission Alpha Omar Konare.


http://www.africasia.com/services/ne...2.l4wgb6aq.php

[Kweku_Omowale]

it warms my heart as well too,now that we realize that they consider us sub humans and leaves us for our fate and destiny,we should wake up and i think,and hope this isa call for action! assante sana!

[SpitfireLeo]

Originally Posted by Kweku_Omowale

it warms my heart as well too,now that we realize that they consider us sub humans and leaves us for our fate and destiny,we should wake up and i think,and hope this isa call for action! assante sana!

I'm already on board, and ready. My heart started to melt when I read the genuine concern of our Brother and Sisters who are watching from afar. I definitely hope this is a wake up call to Afrikans everywere, and a call to action.

[RWalker]

First I wish to thank those Africans who made such stirring replies to my initial post on the subject matter. And all the others who took the time to read my post, I thank also.


Clearly as we have been saying from the beginning there has been a deliberate covert war launched against our people in New Orleans in particular, the Gulf Coast in general and the South at large. This means that in fact there has been a general attack against all of us, since we know that a large proportion of our population in this country is still in the south.

Already corporate news pundits are speculating about the tremendous change in the political and sociological map this mass ethnic cleansing will create in the US.

Many analysts and researchers have documented not mere negligence on the part of the federal government, but outright and planned sabotage of New Orleans; and of the efforts of others who tried to intervene to help the overwhelming black residents.-- (See for example

"The Great New Orleans Land Grab: The 17th Street Canal levee was breached on
purpose " by Ernesto Cienfuegos

http://www.aztlan.net/new_orleans_land_grab.htm

===the authors of the above report do make a mistake in regards to the question of Native Americans land and what they consider Aztlan, they forget that Aztlan refers to a Native American people, the Aztecs...but that does not in the least diminish the value and substance of what they say about the attack and sabotage of New Orleans =====


"Unacceptable�: The Federal Response to Katrina
by Walter M. Brasch (Dr. Brasch is a noted expert on emergency management)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Brasch0912.htm

New Orleans becomes a war zone: A dress rehearsal for martial law?
http://www.asiantribune.com/show_article.php?id=2695

)


In my way of thinking this is merely the first volley in what will be a long and bruising war. A war in which we will take many casualties, but if we UNITE we will win in the end. And win we must because the alternative is our destruction...as Congresswoman McKinney of GA has pointed out lynchings are increasing, there is still a "round them up and put them into concentration camps" mentality in this country, there is a steady erosion of the meager civil rights we have won through years of ardous struggle and spilt blood; as leadership from a wide spectrum of our community's organization have pointed out we are under attack...we must UNITE or we shall suffer the consequences. Pan-Africanism or Perish

(Even other reactionary politicians see the game, for example here in Chicago, the mayor, Richard Daley, the son of the original Mayor Richard Daley. Has made some significant observation about the whole situation, based on the behavior of the federal authority --for example FEMA rejecting Chicago's initial offers of assistance and so forth. Daley in the last few days has advocated that only the people who lived in New Orleans should be allowed to move back to a rebuilt New Orleans and that the US government set up New Deal like work program and hire the displaced residents of New Orleans to go back and salvage/reclaim their city. we suspect that Daley, being a savvy politician who knows how the game is played in this country, like us is suspicious of the US federal governments motivation and actions in regards to New Orleans. The Mayor is apparently trying to defeat the true motives of the feds, because in the end he knows that this will have an adverse impact on the financial (tax, business and consumer) base of cities such as Chicago. )


Pan-Africanism or Perish!

[SoularFlarez]

this Hurricane has been our wake up call to many of us who thought ish was sweet

[Hue-Man]

Originally Posted by RWalker

In my way of thinking this is merely the first volley in what will be a long and bruising war. A war in which we will take many casualties, but if we UNITE we will win in the end. And win we must because the alternative is our destruction...as Congresswoman McKinney of GA has pointed out lynchings are increasing, there is still a "round them up and put them into concentration camps" mentality in this country, there is a steady erosion of the meager civil rights we have won through years of ardous struggle and spilt blood; as leadership from a wide spectrum of our community's organization have pointed out we are under attack...we must UNITE or we shall suffer the consequences. Pan-Africanism or Perish

The only trouble is convincing our brothas and sistas that a war is being waged against us. Many of our brothas and sistaz, who dont know anything about the New world order, boule society etc, will admit that the response to Katrina by this government was racist, but will continue to wave the Amerikkkan flag. Then label you crazy when you tell them that such orginazations exist to destroy them.