Mayor Nagin and the Politics of Hurricane Katrina

During a recent "60 Minutes" interview, a reporter asked Nagin why deluge-damaged cars even now litter the streets of New Orleans, a year after Katrina's floodwaters swamped the city. Nagin replied, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair."
All of the stories that I have read have excoriated the Mayor for his comments, by saying that they were either politically incorrect or lacked tact. In the actual interview, right before mayor makes the aforementioned comments, the reporter questions the alacrity of the Mayor’s rebuilding plan, and then Mayor Nagin makes his comments. Most New Yorkers were outraged at the Mayor’s remarks, especially with the outpouring of philanthropy and altruism that they gave New Orleans’s during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Personally, I think that his comments were true; his critics have taken them out of context. Mayor Nagin was simply referring to the fact that it is bureaucracy. That is slowing down the rebuilding process in New Orleans and New York.

Nagin has rightfully charged the government with imposing tedious application procedures on Katrina survivors applying for rebuilding assistance. For example, Mississippi residents started receiving government rebuilding assistance checks last month, but the residents in Louisiana will have to wait longer, because Governor Blanco has increased the red tape around the application process in order to persuade residents to reconstruct their homes and lives in Louisiana. This process has slowed the payment of funds to Katrina’s victims. There is a misconception that New Orleans has an abundance of money. The truth is that New Orleans is struggling economically, in spite of billions of dollars in congressional aid. The city is in operating on an estimated 1/4 of the revenue it held before Katrina because of the loss of citizens and merchants. One question that I have about the Katrina recovery is why was an overwhelming majority of the reconstruction contracts awarded without competitive bids? Why weren’t minorities included in this process or awarded a decent amount of contracts?

By reporting the linguistic mishaps of Mayor Nagin, I think the media is focusing in on the wrong story. Do you know what they should be focusing on? Well, over the next two weeks we will celebrate two of the most difficult historic anniversaries in recent memory. With these two anniversaries, the political stakes are high, with the anniversary of 9-11 aiding Bush and the GOP, and Hurricane Katrina helping the Democrats. It is a shame that these tragic events will be used as political pawns in the upcoming elections across the country. What does this say about as Americans?

Let’s not forget about the incidents of unadulterated racism that occured during Hurricane Katrina. Remember the incident in Gretna, Louisiana where the police turned back desperate Katrina evacuee’s at gunpoint? The cities’ officials swore that the incident was not racially motivated and posited that they did not have the supplies to deal with the influx of evacuees. That is the most risible excuse that I have ever heard. The truth is that prior to the incident they stereotyped them as criminals and soulless cretins. In this case, they equated black with criminal. If they had been white, the officials of Gretna would have welcomed them with open arms; no questions asked and would have provided them with whatever they needed.

Lately, I have been reading about a increasing number of columnists and political analyst attempting to juxtapose how Rudolph Giuliani and Ray Nagin handled there particular crisis. In my opinion Mr. Giuliani had more to work with, because he had the full support and financial backing of the President from the onset of the 9-11 crises. Also, with Hurricane Katrina, the President had advanced warning of the impending catastrophe, and yet he did nothing. Nothing!

It is disheartening for me to see the media using their considerable power and resources to focus in on a statement that was clearly taken out of context. I see Nagin as an iconoclastic visionary, who uses his position to effectuate change, without regard to whether or not he will be vilified in the press. Even though I am defending the Mayor and his comment, as a piece of advice, Mayor Nagin, think about what your say before you say it and remember that your words can be misconstrued and used to impede your progress.

New Season of Survivor reads like Chappelle's Show episode gone wrong

Yesterday, I was checking my email on Yahoo when I saw a headline that read, New Survivor Divides Groups by Race. Like any other person in the world, I wanted to find out more, so I clicked on the story link. At first I thought that the headline was just a play on words, but as I read more, I figured out that it was a machination devised by the show producers in order to boost ratings and exploit the 'color line.' Apparently on the upcoming season of Survivor, the contestants will be divided into 4 teams, segregated according to 'race.' The four 'races' represented are white, African American, Latino and Asian. It would be easy for me to excoriate CBS for their decision to sanction the show production, but in retrospect, would we expect anything else from this media conglomerate?
As I began to skim the rest of the story, it began to read more like a Chappelle's Show skit gone terribly wrong. You know, like The Racial Draft, or The Mad Real World. These skits are considered classics by purveyors of sketch comedies and Chappelle's Show. Why? Because they were outlandish parodies based on deep-seated racial stereotypes and bigotry. The aforementioned sketches contained interpolations of the tacit thoughts of members of variegated racial groups, but sprinkled with a dash of levity.
In the United Stated, wars and skirmishes alike have been fought over the issue of race. So in my opinion, it is sickening to see this issue exploited for monetary gain. Martin Luther King longed to see a blessed community, where a person's race would not be exploited, but the producers of this show are hell bent on setting race relations back another 100 years. Producers have responded by saying that this twist is just another layer added to Survivor's social experiment premise.
Like The Bell Curve, which posits that black are intellectually inferior to whites (and all other races for that matter), the new season of Survivor, I suspect, will yield findings that will be deleterious to the psyches of African American youth and adults. I am tired of seeing television programming being dictated by the clandestine activities of avaricious executives who care more about ratings than people and seem to push substance to the way side. Producers of this show do not realize that they are interfering with the racial stability (as preposterous as it sounds) of the United States. Let's pray that I'm exaggerating!