Being Angry
I am still angry about Katrina. I am angry because I live in NJ. Where we have forgotten about Katrina already cause, you know, its pretty far away, and it didn't affect us like 911 did. Where I have to talk to people who think that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt. Where people ask how you are getting to New Orleans and when you say, flying, ask if there is still an airport there. Where they dont understand how a person like you could be bringing their kid to a naked orgy like Mardi Gras. Where they wonder why you still have a picture of a collapsed house on your wall - wasn't that last year's news? Where they ask if the city will come back and you say it depends on the government, and they say "well you cant really expect them to pay for everyone's house, we can't afford that. They knew the risks of living in that place and chose to stay there." Where they say, I never knew you were from New Orleans, you don't talk funny.
I don't want to have a civil discussion about seaports and culture and finances and the "soul of America". I just pray that an Atlantic coast hurricane comes this year and drowns their dog and wipes that smirk off their face. I think I live far enough inland to not be affected that much. I have batteries, water, canned goods, propane, and a couple N95 facemasks too. I am as ready as I can be. So I guess I dont have much of a choice as to what my opinion is when I read the discussion with .Suspect Device, Traveling Mermaid, and others about being negative vs. being self sufficient. Yes surely we need to take greater steps to be self sufficent. If Katrina didn't convince us of that nothing will. Of course people will "move on", its only natural. But I am still angry. When I am angry, sometimes I am negative too. I do want to do something constructive, and see positive steps. I think back to something I heard on TV where some congressman was asked why he visited New Orleans with the Women of the Storm sponsored group. He said, because they asked me to.
We need to be as self sufficent as we can. We need to ask for help. We need to be angry. They are not mutually exclusive.
7 Comments:
Great sentiments! Glad I found your blog. I live in PA and face the same attitudes that you do and I'm so angry. There are certain members of my own family that I cant stand to be in the same room with anymore because of their ignorance. And the people that live here where I do, I would expect them to be a hell of alot more compassionate since we lived through terrible flooding after Hurricane Agnes in '72.
That's why we blog, to find each other. I'm starting to wonder how we lived before the internet.
Liz,
It is why so many of us blog - you're so right.
I sometimes get really angry here in Katy, just outside Houston, where Katrina, and Rita, and New Orleans, and the whole thing seems to be one big burden now to so many. It's not everybody, but it's often enough... and it's hardly remote.
Once you're from New Orleans, that's just who you are... and whether you're in NJ, or Alaska, or Egypt, it's a unique identity that is like a mantle to wrap around oneself -- to always remember.
Yes. That's why we blog indeed. Keep the anger. It goes with the compassion, and makes us all strong.
(smile...) Good post, Liz.
Thanks, but I wish I didn't have to be so angry.
Thank you Thank you Thank you.
They are tearing down 1600 homes in the Lower ninth ward, finalized this week.
They just found a man dead in his laundry shed in Mid- City, four blocks from where I taught.
Some of my former students' names are still on the missing person's list.
People are living in houses you can see through.
The first named storm is in the Pacific.
Well, I'm coming in a bit late (June 6) but I wanted to say all of your comments are valid and heartening. Polimom knows me - she is the reason I began blogging! You know, the anger burns like a bonfire then it dies into embers. It's a never ending cycle. We should keep the anger but focus it in a constructive way. I have gotten to the point where the anger was so intense for so long that I just burned out. All I know to do is lay low and blog happy stuff until something comes along that ignites my fire again. And it always does.
Thanks to all for your positive energy./TM
I understand your feelings. I spent six months in the pro-military, pro-Bush city of Virginia Beach, VA where it was nearly impossible to shake off the belief that it was Democrats Nagin and Blanco that set up Bush to look bad.
I know the truth has come out to explain so much more of what really happened but most of these people don't care.
Yes, it can make you bitter but you can't talk people out of stupid.
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