Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 6 October 2005 — Page 15

The Muncie Times • October 5, 2005 • Page 15

WITNESS FOR JUSTICE

Hurricane Katrina exposes America’s race, class fault lines

It was right there for all to see, on television, in the newspapers, on the Internet: Pictures of old people dying in their wheelchairs, while their children watched on helplessly. Pictures of infants screaming from hunger or dirty diapers, unable to be fed or changed while their mothers watched on helplessly. Day after day, the pictures got worse, while the promised help failed to appear. The most vulnerable, the sickest, the oldest, the youngest, the poorest, left to fend for themselves while the bureaucrats promised each morning on the news that help was on the way. This was the United States of America, the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world unable, unwilling to help the least of these before the eyes of the world and the eyes of God. U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings was right God could not have been pleased. And neither should millions of Americans be pleased. For exposed before us were the results not only of the ravages of nature,

but also the ravages of centuries of racism and classism. How could some say that race had nothing to do with it? No, there was no decision in Washington D.C. to help New Orleans because most of the residents were poor and black, but there were decisions in Washington, over decades of both Democratic and Republican administrations, not to provide health care for every single American and there were decisions to only provide minimal job training and only the very minimal low income housing. There were decisions not to fully fund the requests for levee repairs and upgrades and for the upkeep of the wetlands to help protect New Orleans from the ravages of storms. There were decisions to give tax cuts to the wealthiest and to conduct a war which is costing our nation billions of tax dollars every single month. And their certainly was not an urgency to get to New Orleans to save these American citizens, who just happened to be mostly black and mostly poor.

Our troops got to Baghdad quicker than they got to New Orleans. How could some say that race had nothing to do with it? Did they see the news photos of the young white couple, chest deep in water and carrying food with the caption of people from New Orleans finding food and the young black man, chest deep in water, carrying food with the caption of a person looting? How could some say that race had nothing to do with it? Do they have any idea what it feels like to be confronted with the images of the past week and to once again know deep in your soul that you and your people are expendable, that your lives are deemed to be worth less than those who are rich and those who are white? Because for many of us who are African American, that is exactly what we feel right now and the evidence is found in the thousands of bodies of our elders and our babies lying on the streets and sidewalks and in the homes of New Orleans, people who were not

Bernice Powell Jackson

killed by the storm, but by our governments’ delays and neglect. Now that the seam of our racism and our classism has been exposed, the questions for the nation are, shall we just pretend we don’t see it once again? Shall we pretend it does not exist once again? Do we demand, and continue to demand, of our public officials, at all levels, accountability and new direction? Will this be a transformational moment for our country or a confirmation that we are unwilling to deal with the issues of race and class in America in the 21st century? As our nation approached the 20th century, the great African American philosopher and

writer W.E.B. DuBois wrote of the sense ol “twoness,” of apartness that African Americans felt in this nation. More than a century later, will I, and my African American brothers and sisters, children of God, ever really feel welcomed and at home in America? Will our lives ever be deemed equal to those of our white brothers and sisters? The truth, the whole truth, is what will set us free. Are we willing to deal with it? Bernice Powell Jackson is executive minister of United Church of Christ’s Justice at 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115-1110 or by phoning 216-736-3700.

If you would like the Muncie Times delivered to your home, please call (765) 741-0037 or mail a request to The Muncie Times 1304 N. Broadway Ave., Muncie, IN 47303or email: [email protected]