Louisiana, Louisiana,
they're tryin' to wash us away...
- Louisiana 1927, Randy Newman
In case you wondered what shiny happy America's attitude toward poverty is, just peel your eyeballs and watch/read some of the coverage of the unfolding Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Behind the lip gloss, scalloped coiffures, and mannikan smiles of the buffed, semi-anorexic news readers on cable news, you will detect high levels of sanctimony and impatience with the victims trapped in their attics, waiting out the storm on rooftops, wading through high water, lingering among sweat and shit in the Superdome. "Why didn't these people heed the mandatory evacuation?" "Why are they looting at a time like this? How dare they defile our beloved French Quarter!" This attitude was in evidence during the hurricane, even, as they bitched and moaned about people walking the beach observing the weather action...as if these typical human responses were some kind of mutant behavior. Most ridiculous was when this attitude seeped off voyeuristic reporters who themselves were standing outside observing the same weather action. Ranked high on the hypocrisy meter.
As I've watched the coverage, I've been sensing these high-minded, puritannical undercurrents, not so much from the reporters on the ground (who frequently have displayed honest levels of human compassion and understanding) as I have from the plasticene porters in remote newsroom studios, their foreheads shimmering under the hot lights. And I can't help but think that this pious sanctimony among the "perfect looking people", which is so hard for me to listen to, is deliberately being pumped out for the benefit of those in the 'suburban-desparate-housewife-soccer-mom-in-a-SUV' and 'angry-white-collar-downsizable-man' demographic. In short, this segment of the population needs to feel superior to the action taking place on the ground and in the water. They need to assume top-dog position all of the time. They want nothing to do with dirty people in ugly places. Most of the time they can safely ignore the masses, but in times of disaster, you have to look, and looking at reality is always a challenge to those ideological filters. At times, even these modern Marie Antoinettes may feel pangs of sympathy for the infirm and young and maybe say a prayer or pen a check to the Red Cross, no matter what the skin color or income bracket of the victims is. More likely, however, they will feel the angry urge to "take down" (in Pat Robertsonspeak) those who act in socially unacceptable or aberrant ways in the midst of extreme circumstances. "I wouldn't act that way," you can hear them almost thinking. And anyone who stands out of line ought to be locked in a trunk.
They can't seem to comprehend that some people really are that poor, uneducated, under-informed, without cars, without means, without credit cards, without family, living in shit neighborhoods without hope and without a life. Wake up, my plastic action figure semi-citizens! The gulf between haves and have-nots has widened to third-world proportions. You sense that the executive elites resent having to peer into these backwater neighborhoods and that it is perhaps too inconvenient that anybody left behind needs to be rescued, and that the protection of private property--diapers, TVs, and ATM machines-- should really be priority one. If I'm being unfair in my assumptions, correct me in the comments, but I have a feeling that others have heard friends, cousins, blog blokes, fuck buddies and barmates spew some version of this callous vitriol at those who essentially had little to start with and now have nothing left that doesn't fill a garbage bag. They just aren't worth the time....
