Paul Greenberg writes at Beyond Katrina:
This past weekend, the post-Katrina malaise that has swept the nation took an ugly turn towards full-on insensitivity. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) had this to say about New Orleans: “It is time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station.”
Specifically, he urged an end to the federal aid to a city largely still in ruins. “The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called ‘recovery’ efforts has been mind-boggling,” said the Congressman who is running a long-shot presidential campaign. “Enough is enough.”
And just to be absolutely certain that you and I understood what he was trying to say, he added this: “At some point, state and local officials and individuals have got to step up to the plate and take some initiative. The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end.”
Tancredo (just as gentle reminder) is the legislator who voted against the renewal of the historic Voting Rights Act in 2006.
As a New Orleanian, I have to wonder which federally-funded programs in his home state of Colorado might Tancredo feel should stop relying on the federal taxpayer. Would that be the state’s low income energy assistance program? Perhaps those 114,000+ poor, elderly people should wave bye-bye to the “taxpayer gravy train,” too. Oh, and Tom Tancredo, enough is enough about those troublesome federally-funded hospice programs and assisted living facilities. Come on Tom, can’t the state pony up those billions that are poured into Colorado’s coffers? And how about those pesky 56,000 children and 1,200 pregnant women who benefit annually from the Colorado Children’s Health Program? On September 30 it will be decided whether to renew this initiative, funded in part this year by $71.5 million from the Feds. Maybe we should nix that, because you know, Tom, that damned gravy train needs to leave the station, huh?
You begin to see the hypocrisy of Tancredo’s ramblings. When an elected official from another state cavalierly dismisses New Orleans as yesterday’s news, it is time for all of us to speak up and use our collective voice to see to it that the rest of the nation understands the immediacy of our ongoing crisis. Our silence will breed more and more Tom Tancredos.
But then I have to wonder: Is it the nature of Americans to really fall in line for each other when the going gets tough, but to do so with an expiration date? Consider the piece in last Sunday’s New York Times, in which writer N.R. Kleinfield examines whether the pull-all-the-stops-out commemorations of 9/11 should continue at Ground Zero. Kleinfield presents a balanced picture of the diversity of opinion, but what has become known as “9/11 Fatigue” is gravely evident. Kleinfield quotes a Massachusetts woman: “I may sound callous, but doesn’t grieving have a shelf life?” asks Charlene Correia. “We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.”
My concern is that a similar fatigue has now generalized itself toward New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. If there were a national narrator to this catastrophe, he or she would now be saying, “Okay folks, the drama is over. Let’s break it up. Let’s move on with our normal lives.”
Trouble is, the drama is so not over. Consider the organized demonstration that happened just days ago in Chalmette, LA. The participants stormed a local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) office demanding that the government reopen the public housing developments already slated for demolition in the wake of Katrina. They occupied the building for three hours, and upon departing, promised they would be back with reenforcements. Police and National Guardsmen blocked off surrounding streets. Now that’s drama.
And, it is drama with implications. You see, it is not uncommon in New Orleans to hear white citizens express agreement with the decision to demolish the “projects.” Black people, on the other hand, march in 98 degree heat and 100 percent humidity to HANO buildings, to fight for their homes. The real drama is the ever-unfolding racial divide that can no longer hide its antiquated head in the New Orleans below-sea-level sand.
One day later: About 100 people held hands and walked the circumference of the Superdome, to commemorate those horrible post-Katrina four days when some of them were trapped inside the city’s now infamous “shelter of last resort.” My hope here is that “Hands Around the Dome” event will become annual, and that within a short period there will be enough hand holding to form a human chain all around the building. You may call that overly-symbolic. As a journalist, and part-time cynic, I call it a great photo op and an opportunity to keep the suffering of post-Katrina New Orleans in the forefront of the public consciousness.
This is not a time to be quiet in New Orleans.
Link to Greenberg’s piece here.
No need to add anything there.