I got this in my email today. It puts things into perspective...........Thought I'd share it.
Many of you have heard newscasters say that Katrina is the worst U.S. disaster since
1906. The San Francisco earthquake and fires were in 1906. The MountainWings issue,
"Heroes and Hoodlums"
included an excerpt from a Navy Lieutenant detailing the mob that looted saloons
and became so drunk and disorderly that many men and women died in the fires that
destroyed the city because they were drunk.
They refused to help unless they were paid forty cents an hour.
People may think that when disaster strikes that humans sink to their lowest levels
of morality and behavior. Not so.
You find both heroes and hoodlums in disaster.
You will notice one common factor in the 1906 San Francisco drunken mobs and the
2005 New Orleans group causing trouble.
The New Orleans group has a large percentage of blacks.
The San Francisco group was all white.
Race was NOT the common factor.
It was not religion.
The dominate religion of both was Christian.
There was no hip-hop music, no TV, no heavy metal music, no crack cocaine or other
modern drugs in 1906.
But there was a common factor.
From the Lieutenant's report, "this poor residence district..."
"The most heartrending sights were witnessed in this neighborhood."
The common factor was poor neighborhoods.
Both groups felt oppressed, deprived, overlooked, misused, and mostly abandoned
by society. You have to be in the situation to really understand the emotions that
feeling oppressed can breed.
It doesn't just last for a few days either. Often you are born into it and realize
that most likely you will die in it.
Poor
When the earthquake hit San Francisco 99 years ago, some took to the streets and
looted saloons and got drunk.
When Katrina hit New Orleans some took to the streets and took items they thought
were of material value.
The thing that most don't see and that the news does not emphasize is that it is
NOT most of the people, only a minority.
Most of the people from the neighborhood in San Francisco did not loot the saloons,
only a portion, but it was that portion and minority who got written up and talked
about in the Lieutenant's report because they were out front causing trouble.
Some would not help others unless they were paid because they felt society had been
robbing them all along and they weren't going to help "those" folks unless
someone paid them.
I don't condone what either group did, but I can understand how feeling oppressed,
misused, and abandoned can create pent up hostility and resentment.
I sold newspapers when I was a boy in both the rich and poor neighborhoods of Atlanta.
I had the ability to feel the spirit in the house the minute the door was opened.
There was joy and depression, good and bad, in both rich and poor areas but economic
strife born of oppression and hopelessness adds an extra layer of stress that multiplies
problems.
Perhaps the real disaster was neither Katrina nor the earthquake.
It was the conditions that created such neighborhoods in the first place while all
around them was excessive wealth.
Perhaps that is the real disaster, and perhaps the real hoodlums don't live in poor
neighborhoods. The real hoodlums don't use ghetto guns. They don't shoot at helicopters;
they own them.
There is nothing wrong with being rich. But there is something wrong with getting
richer and exploiting others to make yourself wealthier beyond what you will ever
need or spend.
Tell me if you don't feel robbed when you fill up your car.
Tell me if you don't feel robbed when you get your heating bill this winter and
it is double the high bills of last year.
Tell me if you don't feel robbed when you can't afford the gas to get to work or
to take your child to baseball practice.
If you can't afford the gas to get to work, guess which neighborhood you are headed
to?
While you were watching people wade down the street with a few purloined items,
did you notice that YOUR wallet was much lighter?
A real good pickpocket takes your money, and you don't realize he's got it.
It's called the art of distraction.