Not Only the Poor will always be with you....

I was going to respond to jane's comment below, but decided it was leading to something larger.

Yesterday I went to a luncheon of a local business group to hear our parish's disaster-preparedness manager give a talk. The man is our local voice in the wilderness about preparedness, and some folks don't believe his dire warnings about the possiblities for a catastrophic flooding situation in our town. I believe him. He says, "Get the hell out," and that's what I plan to do.

I asked if anyone had thought of a plan similar to the WPA after the depression of the thirties, putting local people to work on recovery projects or a program like the Marshall Plan after WWII. One man piped up, "Those people won't work." I have heard many, many racist remarks recently.

My sister sent me an email with a picture titled "Why There Was No Looting in Texas". It's a picture of about a dozen smiling, white guys with their guns holding a sign which reads, "Drunks With Guns; U Loot; We Shoot." Really funny.

The reason I asked the question below, is because this is an issue of race and class, two things we are supposed to "ignore" in America.

Much of the violence in New Orleans, we now know, was grossly exaggerated, and not all of it due to the conditions or the panic of the people trapped in the city at the time:

A week after the floodwaters poured into the city, an Arkansas National Guardsman told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that soldiers had discovered 30 to 40 bodies inside a freezer in the convention center's food area. Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the newspaper that some of the dead appeared to have met violent ends, including "a 7-year-old with her throat cut."

When the convention center was swept, however, no such pile of bodies was found.

Per Amy Goodman, the Wall Street Journal has reported that much of the looting apparently occurred under the auspices of police seeking much-needed supplies from flooded stores, and the District Attorney of Orleans Parish says two bodies were recovered, one apiece, from the Superdome and the Convention Center (despite reports the Superdome was so violent even the National Guard troops there fled in terror). It is still our secret de Polichinelle (is it really an accident that the National Guardsman who reported that false horror were from Arkansas, while most of those trapped in the city were black?). We are still circling it, like water circling a drain. We are still facing it, and still hoping it will go away. We are still determined to put more energy into protecting what we "own," than in taking care of those we are responsible for.

Atrios brings us to the issue of Bill Bennett, and the fact that we still talk about racism in coded terms. New Orleans exposes the source of our racism, and, as ever, it has to do with property: with who owns what, and why. Basil named it rightly, although the word has so much sting we don't like to use it now: it is avarice. It is as American as racism and apple pie, and it seems we can't pay enough attention to it. But is is greed, pure and simple:

THEY say: whom do I wrong by keeping my property? What, tell me, is your property? Where did you find it and brought it to your life? Just like someone in the theatre, who had a seat and then stopped those who entered, judging that what lies common in front of everyone to use, was his own: rich men are of the same kind. They first took possession of the common property, and then they keep it as their own because they were the first to take it. If one had taken what is necessary to cover one's needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.

Isn't it true, that you fell off the womb naked? Isn't it true, that naked you shall return to the earth? Where is your present property from? If you think that it came to you by itself, you don't believe in God, you don't acknowledge the creator and you are not thankful to Him who gave it to you. But if you agree and confess that you have it from God, tell us the reason why He gave it to you.

Is God unjust, dividing unequally the goods of our life? Why are you rich, while the other is poor? Isn't it, if not for any other reason, in order for you to gain a reward for your kindness and faithful providence, and for him to be honored with the great awards of patience? But you, having gathered everything inside the bosom of avarice which is always empty, do you think that you wrong no one, while you strip so many people?

Who is the greedy person? It's him, who doesn't content himself with what he has. And who strips? He who steals what belongs to the others. And you think that you are not greedy, and that you do not strip the others? What was granted to you, in order for you to take care of the others, you took it and you made it your own. What do you think?

He who strips the clothed is to be called a thief. How should we name him, who is able to dress the naked and doesn't do it, does he deserve some other name? The bread that you possess belongs to the hungry. The clothes that you store in boxes, belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you, belong to the bare-foot. The money that you hide belongs to anyone in need. You wrong as many people as you [are] able to help.