A persons a person no matter how brown.

August 29, 2005 I was learning to drive trucks. I was driving all over the midwest, all over the south with a trainer. We watched as convoys of black vehicles with tinted windows and Army vehicles headed south in the days after the storm. At the time my goal was not killing us while I drove. My focus was on paying the bills that had been piling up and surviving my first few months out in a world I knew nothing about. While I was trying to keep myself together in the truck 20,000 plus people of all colors shapes and sizes were waiting for food, water and rescue. I could sit here and try to write without bringing race or class into it like some reporters and politicians have tried to do but i'm just not that hopeful. There is not a bone in my body that can be convinced that if the majority of people in need of saving had been white and rich, that they would have starved and been left in third world conditions for one day let alone 5 days.

After spending the last few months watching and learning about the past and present New Orleans I have learned that despite my tough bitter exterior I somehow maintain hope that the have nots will some day win over those pesky haves. I have received some very suprising feedback on my hope for the culture of New Orleans to not be lost with all that has happened. I've had friends and family tell me that moving there and trying to help in the rebuilding process would be pointless, that these people don't want help and even that they are nasty people who should not be helped. These are the combined words of several different people who I have grown up with, who have raised me and who despite their lack of hope, I still love.

The compassion and understanding that we lack as a country is an ever festering American disease. We watch bad things happen and move on as quickly as can be to the feel good stories about the puppies saved by Sarah Mclachlin, we turn the TV off for the real news because we are too sensitive or too senseless to know that if it could happen there it could happen anywhere. This week broadcasters, journalist, media, American media, chose to look at the good things that are happening now and some looked back at the past and others chose to go with the feel good stories of hope and rebuilding. The fact is they steered clear of the anger and the frustration, they steered clear of race and class and the pink elephants trampling all over these stories. These stories left out the people who still have not been able to go home, barely touched the true crime of tainted FEMA trailers and plans for less public housing, less affordable homes, the lack of reasonable insurance payouts, the simple things like the rise in homelessness due to the rise in rents, the jobs and schools, these are the details that don't make Americans want to watch. What people in the media and in control seem to be missing is that anyone paying attention knows that for every shiny good thing, for every sparkly piece of hope and spirit that these people have there are ten more things that need help, hope and serious attention. We are living in a time where knowledge is more powerful than ever but less desired by the moment and less retained by the hour.

For every person who wants to know there are twenty who are too busy focusing on their bills their needs and their survival to even consider that anyone may have it worse. It keeps me up at night knowing that now I see and if I do nothing I become the ignorance that I've grown to hate. It breaks my heart to know that in my lifetime there are not only racist people but there are people who truly believe that there is no racism involved in something like the days after Katrina. Rational people with common sense and good hearts who believe any one of many lies we tell ourselves to make tragedies into the victims problem, to make it ok to live with ourselves. The people of New Orleans may have been mean and ornery, rude and tough but the truth we try so hard to ignore is poverty. These people did not have the ability to evacuate for various reasons but I'm willing to bet the majority of them were using public transportation. The difference between New Orleans and Detroit is that when things get tough in Detroit people leave. Things get tough in New Orleans and people stick it out, at times clearly to their own peril. The poor of any city are going to be tough, they are going to be angry and they are going to fight harder than most to survive. I do not believe that the people of Detroit could have survived a disaster like Katrina and I don't believe that as a country we are truly so lacking in compassion that we truly believe it is acceptable to throw away our poor. I do believe that we have given up our belief in community, our faith in one another and our fighting spirit. As a country we've sold our souls for the money, forgotten our dreams and lost our voices along the way. Everyone in this country could learn so much about living if we just took a moment and followed the lead of the people and culture of New Orleans.

There is hope for all of us in the spirit of New Orleans and this week as you eat your meals, take your showers, use a bathroom or just go home, try to think about how you would have lived through their tragedies. Consider you have no car, no transportation and the mayor tells you there is a mandatory evacuation, think what you would do while the city shut down its public transportation, parked its busses and left you behind. Ponder the thought of your government, your emergency aid, your army not noticing 10,000 or so people in one place and 20,000 in another, despite the numerous helicopters flying over them, the news coverage and the unmistakeable need for help. Imagine being told to turn around after reaching a bridge into the next city, being told by men with guns that you are not welcome because with you, come other starving, smelly, needy people. Imagine the stench of waiting five days while people around you died, waiting for food and water that can be air dropped to third world countries across the globe in two days. Think about how you would survive this knowing your home, your community and your family may never be the same. Think how you would feel if you were shipped off to some random strange city to be left no way home whether you had a home to go to or not. Be grateful that you have not lived their tragedy but be mindful of the lesson their spirit, their community and their tradition of survival teaches. Remember how fortunate you are to have the means to leave if you had too and remember those who could not.

A little kindness goes a long way in both bad times and good. The storm may have passed but the damage is not near finished and as we watch stories about Pakistan and Haiti lets not forget our own people trying to survive our own tragedies, lets lead by example and make some effort to keep our eyes, hearts and minds open. This is America and if we cannot give our own people the chance to have things back the way their community wants, the way they were or better, based upon the needs of the community instead of the wants of the few, what does that say about how we, help others. If it could happen to New Orleans, LA it could happen to Bridgeport, CT or Charlotte, NC or Detroit, MI and if you don't think it could happen to you, take a look at your elected officials, thank them keep paying attention and be sure to vote next time around.