Home > American Racism Caught on Film

American Racism Caught on Film

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 8 September 2005
40 comments

Discriminations-Minorit. Catastrophes USA

Forum posts

  • Let me guess - some of your best frineds are black.

    • None of my best friends are black, but some of my good friends are, as are some of my best neighbors (they have the best lawn on my street).

      Oh, hey, I forgot! Some of my best friends ARE Mexicans, so will you give me half-credit for that in the Great Bellaciao Race Derby, even though white leftists are usually the only ones eligible?

  • How pathetic. I guess we’re supposed to overlook as many as 10,000 dead because of a handfull of photos that appear well-staged?

    • Yes, they carefully heaped rubble and chaos in the background to stage the photos. Or maybe they used FotoShop software to actually make black people and white people appear in the same frame.

    • Dumb ass. Staged in that someone was able to find six or more photos of white people helping blacks and that, my friend, is the problem. Imagine having to justify a feeble position with a few photographs while thousands of black in New Orleans clearly suffered and many have died because they were black and poor. The position to the contrary in indefensible.

    • "thousands of black in New Orleans clearly suffered and many have died because they were black and poor."

      I agree with the statement as far as "poor" goes, but not with "black". Plenty of white people died in Mobile, Alabama, and most (but surely not all) of them were poor, too. (Note: I’m using "poor" in the American sense. The American poor are very rich by the standards of the world in general, and certainly by the standards of history. Admittedly, those are grim standards, but that’s reality.)

      Do you think we all live in 1950’s Mississippi? Where have you been the past fifty years?

      By the way, are you black? Is anyone who lives on your block black? When was the last time you drank a beer with a black man?

  • I am not suprised that a conservative group put up these photos of white evangelical church members taking care of the black victims of the hurricane. We now see the Bush administration’s plans to reduce the roll of government and replace it with ’faith based’ institutions. Cut taxes, starve the beast and hand over public well being to the church. Seems like the 18th century all over again. Are poor houses next?

    Also interesting is the nature of the work being done by these people, much like the missionaries that were sent off to ’darkest Africa’ to save and heal the heathens. Why must the poor and victimized have to suffer the added humiliation of having to put up with religious zealots just to get a meal and a place to sleep.

    The government is responsible for the well being of its people. The government failed and now
    the victims have to put up with Geoge Bush’s 18th century replacements

    A Walker
    Cambridge, MA

    • Mr. or Mrs. Walker,

      What have you personally done to help those in need in the wake of this hurricane? If you haven’t done anything—and even if you have—putting down the efforts of those who have actually devoted time and money, regardless of their motives, is pretty disgusting. Are you saying that if those who are there and are helping are not doing so for the purist of reasons, as you define them, then their help should be condemned?

      By the way, are only black christians allowed to help those in need?

      MTT

    • I agree with you. Where’s moveon.org, the ACLU, and all the other lefty organizations? Why aren’t they giving aid and comfort to the needy? Where are their soup kitchens and network of people to provide the basics to these people?

    • moveon.org, et al., have a straighforward philosophy: if it isn’t being done with federal tax dollars, it simply doesn’t count.

    • In response:
      It is this administration’s plan to reduce the role of government and hand over much of the work and funding to religious organizations. The government is supposed to help the people when in greatest need and protect them and serve them. We need to move away from religious groups taking on the work of the government. We founded this country based on the seperation of church and state. If religious institutions (Mosques, Temples, Shrines, Covens) or non religious institutions (football teams, unions, frat houses) want to give money and help out then great. BUT it is not their roll to serve and protect the people of this country regardless of religion it is the GOVERNMENT’S roll to serve and protect the people of this country. The government has failed after we gave them 100 billion for such emergencies. As far as Christians acting for purist reasons, remember the role the ’Christians’ played in the Belgian Congo and in Germany in the 30’s. The church has more blood on its hands than could fill Lake George.

    • Blaming Christendom for everything done by Christians doesn’t make any more sense than blaming 30-year-old Germans for the Holocaust. Should I condemn muslim charities who are helping in N.O. simply because jihadists are muslims?

      "We need to move away from religious groups taking on the work of the government."

      IMO, the opposite is true. Government is clunky and inefficient compared to private charities. Government is also amoral by its nature.

      "We founded this country based on the seperation of church and state."

      With all due respect, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Anyway, if religious groups engage in charity, how on earth does this entangle government and religion? These groups are not the government (which I think is one of the points you are making).

      It is you, not me, who favor changing the historical role of government. Look at the Galveston hurricane at the turn of the last century. I think that if you check the historical record, you will see nothing resembling the 1902 version of FEMA handing out $2k debit cards to evacuees. (I’m only illustrating my point, here. I’m not opposed to federal disaster relief, and those debit cards in particular sound like a good idea. I am, however, opposed to you being opposed to private charities of any stripe. People need help.)

    • If you check out their web site, which may kill you, you’ll see that moveon.org is sponsoring hurricanehousing,org which so far has received offers of over 200,000 shelters by people in the area to hurricane victims. They just haven’t been trolling right wing web sites to brag about it. So I suppose your humanitarianism is more American and Christian than their humanitarianism ?

    • FEMA won’t left most deliver supplies or even gain access to the area. The Bush administration is in control to cover-up the number of deaths. Think about it...during the tsunami (i.e. flood) of 12/26/04, we had an hourly death-count. More than a week after this flood, we still have no idea how many people have died. Why? What are they hiding?

    • Bu$h the liar said that FEMA would be handing out debit cards in the amount of $2,000 which did not happen. But $2,000 will not go far when you have no job, no house, no car, no prospects.

      The government short changed these people by refusing to fully fund the most important project that would have averted this disaster that was waiting to happen, the levees. Of course this is the scandal that Bu$h will do everything in his power to pretend he didn’t do/know about. It is easy to blame the local government for this, but the truth is that the federal government is responsible for the infrastructure of our country. They are the only ones with the resources to afford these huge projects, and it is their undisputed responsibility and they willfully chose to cut the requests for the project’s funding. Instead they decided to gamble with people’s lives by diverting money to a trillion dollar criminal war in Iraq to enrich their buddies who own Cheneyburton, KBR, Carlyle, etc. and all of the "security" companies lining their pockets over there.

      These people need to be rounded up and prosecuted for their disgusting behavior and their dereliction of their duties as our "representatives". A life sentence would be too good for them.

      Anyone who does not believe that Cheneyburton, et.al have emptied the U.S. treasury should do a google search on this company along with Carlyle an evil creeping conglomerate slowly eating up the industries of the world until they own everything and are being funded by the U.S. taxpayer. Daddy Bu$h sits on their board of directors, so does Howard Baker (got GW appointed president in 2000) and the same old mafia thugs that are surrounding these scumbags today. It is very freightening what is happening. Bu$hco commits their crimes right out in the open knowing no one can stop them.

    • Well, then, I stand corrected, and good for them. You aren’t going to hear me running down the charitable work of others, be they white, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, whatever. That’s what I’m arguing against, if you’ll read this thread.

      By the way, are you suggesting that Bellaciao is a right-wing website?

    • More conspiracy theories. Isn’t the world complicated enough without them?

      "But $2,000 will not go far when you have no job, no house, no car, no prospects."

      I met a man from the Gulf Coast who fled to my town and is already looking for work. He’ll land on his feet, I assure you.

      I agree with the levees being a federal project. That being said, your knee-jerk "blame W" might feel great for you, but it doesn’t make much sense. People have known of this threat for 50 years, none moreso than senators and congressmen from LA. Have they not introduced legislation to upgrade the levees? Why not? LA is a Dem-controlled state and has been throughout living memory. Are you telling me that this couldn’t have been done when the Dems controlled both houses of congress and the white house?

    • No, you insist that Bellaciao is a "leftist" web-site, even though yours and several other right-leaning articles have appeared on it, without snotty editorial comments. Any opposition has come from free minded posters. Since you followed up your article with continuous posting, you appear to be "trolling", i.e. looking for a fight or bragging. What I’m saying is moveon.org would not bother doing this on a "righty" website ’cause it’s pretty juvenile. But hey, it’s your keyboard.

    • You need to do a little research, last year a series of articles appeared about the levees and the funding cuts in the New Orleans LaFayette Newspaper, the governments own reports regarding the danger of the levees being vulnerable were alerting and warning of the possibility of exactly what happened only a few months before it did, yet in the last four years, the levees budgets were cut each year giving them less than half of the money requested by the engineers who estimated the costs. With Iraq being a giant vacuum cleaner sucking huge amounts of federal money, and our 8trillion Bu$h debt, short changing America has been the hallmark of the Bush administration, while his pet project, the oil wars has drained the coffers, the failure to deliver anything of value to Americans is proportinate to the colossal looting of the treasury.

      Americans need to ask themselves WHERE HAS ALL OF THE TAX MONEY GONE? Why are they collecting record amounts, yet our country is shabby and deteriorating and left to crumble? Who is getting mega rich from non bid government contracts? If Clinton had tried any of these thing, he would have been soooo investigated (remember travelgate) and sooo impeached, and we all know it.

    • Thanks for defining "trolling", I’ve been wondering about that.

      You may check the first response to this article and decide whether or not you think it’s "snotty."

  • There is only one race. The HUMAN RACE !

  • New Orleans - Fallujah - Hiroshima: only a few places of American shame.

    The rednecks can sing we are the heroes and even if it is published on TV it is not truth.

    America has fallen again into ethnic cleansing. Also this great country has never apologized to the slaves or to the Indians.

    ...shame on you!

    • Exactly. Think about what the Bush administration has done to America; prison abuse, mass-killings in Iraq, lies to support an illegal war, failure to protect our citizens (both in NYC and NOLA) and they’re not even getting started. The American project has failed.

    • The BBC interviewed a white British couple who were tourists caught in NO after they finally got out of the hell hole superdome. They said they felt guilty being smuggled out during the night by the authorities while all of the black citizens were being totally ignored. They also said they would could not forget what happened during their stay in the superdome, the sick and dying, the dead bodies, the lack of food and water, the sweltering heat during the day, the damp stench during the night, it was a nightmare that they will remember always. And they will not forget that because they were white they got preferential treatment.

      The U.S.A. will never admit to what the rest of the world knows about us, we treat the blacks like they are animals and we have never gotten over our slavery mentality, and probably never will as a country.

    • I think the time has come for various states to secede from this viscious regime.The new government should be proportionally represented so that the winner take all mentality would change to equal representation under the law. All those caught in the other states who wish to leave would be eligible for foreign aid from the newly formed country, the Equal States of America. Now please, righties you can post here, but I don’t really want to hear your drivel.
      johnnybgood

    • "Ethnic cleansing"

      Ridiculous.

      I’m not ashamed of Hiroshima, and certainly not of Fallujah, but that’s for another thread. You might have done better to mention the Trail of Tears.

    • Tourists got bumped to the front of the line on the orders of the NO mayor. Look it up.

      You’re right, that is shameful.

      MTT

    • JohnnyBGood,

      Then don’t read this string, if you don’t want to hear opposing opinions. Wrap yourself in groupthink on another string.

    • You wouldn’t know how to be ashamed, so what? Bush could screw you over a thousand ways and you would still make excuses for him, so what? The truth could be pounded into your head and it wouldn’t register, so what? You are too stupid to see anything except your own bloated false patriotism "My president right or wrong" just like the Germans with Hitler, you probably think the pedophile ring that runs the Catholic is right too don’t you? Never question the "great leaders" even if they are blatently criminal and immoral, so what?

    • Better try to train yourself not to drink the Kool Aid......

    • You are so full of shit, you really belong on the GOP sites, we REALLY don’t need any professional excuse makers for Bu$h here. What’s the matter, is it too boring for you on the Bush lovers sites? Is it like one big echo chamber of bullshit? I can understand how you would have to come here to find some thinking people, but you are not one of them, so you have NOTHING to contribute that would interest anyone here, do us all a favor and go troll somewhere else you’re smelling up the place.

    • You are the one who needs to frequent other sites, you have nothing but Bush talking points to offer, if we want Faux news we can turn on the t.v. for ourselves...don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

    • JohnnyBGood, this troll is a Liar for Bush...he has said more than once that he is out of here, can’t tolerate us "lefties" and then there he is again over and over like a bad smell. The pathetic piece of shit has his head so far up Bush’s ass he can’t think straight. Bush can’t think straight either since he has his snout packed with coke 24/7/365 now. Someone needs to grab him and give him a random drug test, he needs to be busted again without daddy being able to come to his rescue this time, he is dangerous, a lunatic out of control. The truth will come out mark my words, George Warmonger Bush is a cocaine addict and it could not be more obvious.

    • I’ve never said I’m leaving. I have, however, been blocked from the site twice. It’s Bellaciao’s ball, and sometimes, they go home.

      MTT

    • Don’t leave the site MTT, seriously. Theres nothing more boring than people all with the same opinion. Don’t agree with your postings, but hate censorship even more. Nearly all right wing arguments can be shot down in flames, but keep flying. Are you a radical lefty playing devils advocate anyway ?

    • ....Anyway back to the thread. The pictures do seem a little selective, but also serve to mask a bigger issue. All over the world, not just in the US disproportionate of the poor and dispossesed live in ’hazardous ’ areas. Again a disproportionate number of those people are non-white. Fact.

      Put another way, the rich and well off live at higher altitude. Go to any major city in the world and the majority of the rich live on developments on hills. i’ve noticed this in the UK and on my trips to the US noticed it in Los Angeles, San Francisco etc. (All we can do is pray that they’re in fact living on active volcanoes).

      There are so many statistics to show the US and UK administrations are run on racist lines eg healthcare, employment, prison composition, psychiatric assessment, etc etc.

    • MTT...you are such a liar, you have repeatedly said you were "out of here" and then like a bad smell you are right back again....you Bu$h apologists are all the same, you troll sites looking for a fight, then when you are found out for a fool, you say "I’m out of here"...but you just can’t stay away....just like Bu$h and his coke habit...just can’t leave it alone.

    • "Nearly all right wing arguments can be shot down in flames, but keep flying."

      I got a chuckle out of that, and thanks for the go-ahead from the tower. Proceeding on final.

      Nope, I’m what I appear to be—a classical liberal, which in the modern ’Mercan vernacular is called a "conservative." I reserve the right to be wrong. If I didn’t constantly challenge my basic assumptions, I’d be the same lefty I was as a teenager. Most of my lefty friends are great people; I just think that the mistake they make is believing everyone else is a great person, too. It’s the old "A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged" theory.

      What a lot of people on this site miss, maybe because they are not Americans, is that if you voted for George Bush twice, like I did, all it means is that you think he’d do a less-bad job than John Kerry or Al Gore.

      Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Onwards....

      MTT

    • "Again a disproportionate number of those people are non-white. Fact."

      Well, they’re also disproportiantely Japanese, too, right?

      You’re correct about the well-heeled living on the hills. (Except for rural hills, like the Appalachians, the Andes, Tibet, etc.) This is generally done for security, I think. Easier to control access and see trouble coming before it shows up, which is why European castles were built on hills. The one exception I can think of is El Salvador, where the rich insanely live in gullies.

      One weird phenom in the modern world is the American obsession with beachfront property. Plenty of mansions got wiped out by this storm because there simply isn’t any high ground upon which to build beachfront prop like in CA. Of course, their occupants generally had the wherewithal to leave town . . .

      Gotta dart,

      MTT