Racism and Katrina

There is a fundamental problem with the whole concept of racism that ignores the fact we are all the same race - human beings. Some people might find certain colours more attractive to look at or interact with as is personal preference but one is not better than the other if we believe we are all born equal.

Today though we look at everything from a business perspective.  Business is very black and white when it comes down to it - make money however you can. This attitude has come to the forefront over the last twenty years or so and infiltrated the way we think about things that do not work as a business does. Slowing down global warming is a relevant example.

However, the business attitude has brought a great many people a huge amount of success and power and hence has become a way of life for them especially as it has often proven useful in non-business situations.  Being able to organise, delegate etc must be very useful in disaster situations, or something like deciding which groups of people won't kick up as much as a fuss if welfare benefits are lowered in order to save the country money for example.

Hurricane Katrina was a different kettle of fish however. Totally unprecedented for all living generations. This kind of thing demanded genuine leadership and compassion and not experience of wealth generation.  Human lives were at stake here not money. With attitudes so concentrated on what is best for themselves the US government were caught out - "it's just another hurricane" - "the local authorities will sort it out like they normally do" - "Fox news is showing people being rescued by helicopter, it must be ok" - "We really should get back to helping our friends in the arms and bio-chemistry fields who give this country so much help Sir" - aaaghhh!!!

It’s not hard to imagine how a government full of people with this attitude suddenly found themselves vastly out of their depth over Katrina. You only had to watch the way Bush and Rice acted (in a literal sense) before any action was taken to see this was true. "These puppets are not cut out for this situation. Public believability factor has taken a nosedive. Send in the National Guard."

A lot of the rhetoric over racism acts as a smoke screen covering up the real source of the problem in my opinion.

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