Does Kanye West hate Midwestern white farmers?
Remember the HUGE fundraising event that was carried by all of the major networks after Hurrican Katrina? Remember all the big name celebrities who gave their time and energy to raise money for those affected? Remember Kanye West’s infamous deduction the George Bush hates black people because his government didn’t have the response to the catastrophe that Mr. West would have expected?
No, this is not Wizard of Oz
Where was Kanye and his elite club of superstars last year when the entire eastern border of Iowa was nearly washed away? In fact, where was the telethon on ANY channel? Where was the DC finger pointing when these midwestern farming families had to swim down their driveway to get to safety? Were there busses driving those folks from Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Burlington and Weaver to St. Louis, Chicago or Minneapolis?
Last summer, damages were estimated at over $1Billion, but have we heard anything about it since? Remember Anderson Cooper doing a broadcast from New Orleans once a week until the government got its act together? From what I remember, CNN and all the other national news elements pulled out as soon as the flood water level had “leveled” off. No more immediate threat to its reporters? Move on! Nobody is interested in middle America’s problems.
Well you should be.
Please do not read this as me saying you should think about Iowa and NOT New Orleans, but I don’t think it should be the other way around. Yes Katrina was awful…devastating even. But so was the flood in Iowa last year.
But the questions need to be asked:
- Where are the FEMA trailers?
- Where are the debit cards for them to spend at the strip clubs and gun shops like they did in New Orleans?
- Where the specialty brew beers whose proceeds go to relief efforts?
- Why does FEMA have a whole section set up for Katrina News on their web site, which scrolls and scrolls with information and for the Iowa flood, they have a few news releases telling Iowans they had until Aug 12 to sign up for relief and links to other news?
- The biggest news release? “Iowa Flood Relief More than $2Million.”
- Federal allocations in response to hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma now total over $88 billion.
- W hat!?
Whats the Matter? Not enough crime associated with the Iowa Flood?
Not enough homes eradicated?
Not enough damage to the crops?
Not enough damage to agriculture?
Not enough people exposed to toxic water?
Not even swift water crashing through the area?
I lived in Iowa for ten years. I was not there for last year’s flood, but I lived there in 1993 and help sandbag down at the Mississippi River as well as other rivers in the area. The thing that everyone needs to realize is that farming truly is many families’ livelihood. When crops are wiped out from raging flood waters, when cows and pigs drown on water that quickly creeps up on them, its not a funny photo to be passed around – it is less food and shelter that family can pay for that month.
It saddens me that the people of this region have not been treated with the same ongoing services that are still being given to those in New Orleans. Please, again, I am not saying that New Orleans residents do not deserve aid (but don’t get me started on rebuidling in known flood zones) – my point is that there are people in the Midwest who lost EVERYTHING as well.
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Good Post !!! Oh yeah, there was a difference between the two events. In New Orleans, there was no mandatory evacuation order until 24hrs before the storm and we saw a complete lack of emergency preparation.
The media gave us a sad view of those “poor” “poor” people left behind in NO. Orleans Parish has a 27% poverty rate and the median income is $28K, so it’s safe to say many of these people didnt even have transportation to get them out. Actually, I’ve been to NO many times on business and pleasure and yeah, bus transporation is a huge part of the cities infrastructure. Sadly, those same busses were under 11ft of water when they could have been rolling people out of town.
There was a combination of factors which hurt New Orleans – Poverty, poor city leadership..they simply chose not to leave… or didnt have the means to do so. Not to mention the city government completely failed the residents by not having comprehensive plans to get its residents out of the city. It’s only a city of around 225,000 people and by the media coverage, it looked like 225 million!
This was easy pickens for the media to paint a picture of crying minorities and people dying on the sidewalk. Mayor Nagin and the city of NO failed it’s people and they paid the price.
Iowa didnt get any coverage because it handled the emergency better. If you read the articles, major cities in Iowa mandated “forced” evacuations. Cedar Rapids forced 24,000 out of their homes. Iowa City forced about 600 people out due to rising water, 35,000 people outside of Des Moines ordered to leave, etc. Iowa ordered “state” wide evacuations…let me repeat – STATE wide…New Orleans was ONE city with a sparse population…huh? Will I be labeled a racist because of the truth?
New Orleans didn’t even a plan which included public transport, buses, and trains. It didnt exist prior to Katrina, and if it did exist…who failed to put it into action?.. FEMA? Are you kidding me? The city of New Orleans relied on the Federal Government to act swiftly…..shame on the city for that naive faux pas.
Yeah, there was a huge disparity in how the two emergencies were covered and viewed. When a city does it right, there is nothing juicy for the media and celebs to get their lips around. Oh, and I forgot, Joan Rivers said it best, people in the midwest are dumb. They couldn’t of possibly handled a natural disaster as well as they did. You’re damn right people in Iowa had a lot to lose when the floods came in, and they worked hard to make sure they limited damage and destruction. It’s not a black and white thing, it’s a not being prepared vs communities coming together in a time of crisis thing.
I felt bad for the residents of New Orleans, I felt really bad for the children who suffered at the hands of pathetic state and city leadership…not federal.
DId they show thousands of crying Iowa residents on the sidewalks? Did the media show dead people sitting in wheelchairs with blankets draped over them? Little kids running around with no food, shelter, and sleeping on overcrowded cots? People crapping inside of a sports arena? Women getting sexually abused by other displaced victims?
NO – you know why – it didn’t happen in Iowa.
So, by that logic – in order for celebs, fed govt, and other relief resources to get involved, there needs to be thousands of crying Iowans on the sidewalks, dead people lying in the streets and little kids running around without parents, food or shelter? Should they have all crammed into Five Seasons Center and waited it out? Do we need abuse to justify aid?
That’s a pretty bad benchmark.
She, I think my point was lost in translation again. (My apologies too, I tend to use a lot of analogies and my thematic patterning can jump around a bit)
The statements in my last paragraph were still under the context in which I was explaining the differences between what we saw in Iowa and what we saw in NO and its correlation to the disparity in the Gov’t aid response, per the article.
The root of my comparision was this – “It’s not a black and white thing, it’s a not being prepared vs communities coming together in a time of crisis thing. ”
My translation- The media, the idiot mayor of NO, and the scenes of human carnage were packaged up with a ribbon and delivered to us with the label “Our Gov’t hates black people, FEMA failed”…so in pours the aid.
In comparison, none of those same images were piped in from Iowa because they handled the crisis better. You didnt see the magnitude of people on the streets, or dead bodies (and neither did the media).
Iowa didnt become a race issue and they managed the safety of their people better…thus it received little media attention and less Gov’t aid. Again, this is just my opinion.