Stronger, Faster, and Ghettoer

Monday, September 26

:: John Legend's thoughts on Katrina aftermath. ::

From: John Legend
Reply To: JohnLegend@columbiarecords.com
To:
Subject: Update from John Legend: Katrina Aftermath
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 2:47 PM

September 19, 2005

Hey people. Greetings from Paris. The European tour has been incredible, sold
out all over the continent and the UK, and we're having a great time.
However, my mind has often been focused on the awful tragedy that has befallen
New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast area. I've truly been saddened
by the images and stories that I've seen and heard on the news. Even in Europe,
coverage of Katrina and its disastrous effects has dominated the newscasts.

In all my recent interviews, reporters have asked me what I think of the
hurricane and our government's tragically flawed response. They've particularly
asked me about the comments made by my friend and frequent collaborator, Kanye West, who said, among other things, that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people."
His comments may have shocked a lot of people, but he also inspired many and
gave voice to a lot of people's frustrations about the truly disturbing images
of so many poor Black hurricane victims who were getting the worst of the disaster and George Bush's seeming indifference.

So what do I think about the situation? First of all, I'm truly sad to see such
an important, unique city as New Orleans made uninhabitable. New Orleans is such
an important city in American and Black music history. It is the birthplace of so
much culture, and there's no other place like it in America. I've always loved
visiting there and performing there, and I get such an empty feeling knowing that I won't be able to perform there again for a long while.

Secondly, it is truly heartbreaking to see the images of so many people taken
out of their homes and made to live in sports arenas and convention centers with
thousands of other evacuees. Many have been separated from everything they know and love: their families, their homes, all their earthly possessions. It's terrible. And
for this to happen in a country as wealthy and prosperous as ours is shameful, leaving a number of very serious questions that must be asked and answered.

Regarding Kanye's comment, I'm proud of his courage to say what was on his mind.
It heightened everyone's awareness of Bush's failings as a leader. And it may
very well be true that Bush doesn't care much about the Black constituency. We can only speculate as to what's in his heart and mind regarding Black people, but there
certainly is evidence that Bush governs like he cares only about the interests of the rich and powerful. His strategy has clearly been to keep his fervent base (the rich and the cultural conservatives) motivated. So he makes sure the tax cuts and corporate welfare keep coming. And he throws enough symbolic (rather than substantive) bones to the working and middle-class cultural conservatives to keep them motivated. And anyone that falls outside his fervent base, his administration disregards. That includes Black people because he figures that we won't vote for him anyway, so why waste energy and political capital on us? That doesn't mean he doesn't like Black people on a more personal level("Hell, some of his best cabinet members are Black!"). He's just doing the math(well, his strategist Karl Rove probably is) and making sure he focuses on a winning strategy, which requires next to no Black votes to keep him in power. In addition, he turns a blind eye to theefforts of Republican foot soldiers to exploit racism and to suppress the votes
of urban Blacks who tend to vote Democratic. So, the net result is that his administration governs with no regard for the concerns shared by most of the Black community.

But I think a more precise analysis is that Bush's policies are decidedly
anti-poor and pro-rich. This is more of a class issue than a race issue. I think
it's a mistake when people equate "Black" and "poor" as though they're interchangeable terms. Being poor and Black have been highly correlated in our nation's tumultuous history, but they are not the same thing. In New Orleans, the overwhelming majority of the poor are Black and the majority of the Black citizens are poor. But this nation is full of a wide range of Black experiences and the poor come from all colors of the rainbow (though Black & brown are clearly over-represented in that rainbow).

All that being said, I don't think that I agree that Bush's slow reaction to the
disaster was because a disproportionate number of the un-evacuated victims of
Katrina were Black. While there have been many instances of racism in the evacuation process in New Orleans and the surrounding areas and in the reporting about the aftermath, I don't think Bush's early inaction was based on his own racism. I think Bush was truly oblivious to the extent of the disaster and the despair that overwhelmed the city. From all of his statements and the reports of his behavior right after the hurricane hit, it is abundantly clear that the President was uninformed as to the suffering that was going on. He has insulated himself from the news (actually he's proudly announced that he doesn't read the news!) and anything that disturbs his bubble of ignorance, and it took several days before his staff and the overwhelmingly disturbing images on the news could penetrate his ignorant bliss. Not to mention the fact that his FEMA staff washeaded by people that don't know much of anything about dealing with emergencies. He clearly de-prioritized emergency management as a federal responsibility and it came backto bite everyone in the ass with Katrina. However, simply saying that Bush wasuninformed and unprepared rather than racially motivated in this case is not letting him off the hook. On the contrary, it is extremely dangerous and inexcusable for our President to be incompetent in these types of circumstances.

And, as usual, the people who are suffering the most as a result of the
administration's negligence are the people with the least resources to fend for
themselves: the poor and elderly of New Orleans and the surrounding region, many of whom are Black. To be clear, I'm not saying they're suffering solely because of their
race. It's more exact to say that they're suffering because they're poor, and due in
part to the nation's pervasive history of racism along with a number of other
factors, many of the nation's urban poor are Black.

Not surprisingly, people around the world, including myself, are now admirably
donating their time and money in a very encouraging display of generosity to
help the impoverished Katrina victims. This generosity toward the needy gives me hope
that Americans (along with our foreign donors) have the heart and the
inclination to help those that are less fortunate.

But we have to also realize that a lot of these hurricane victims weren't made
destitute by the hurricane and the flood. Many of them were already destitute!
And they're not just in the Gulf region. They're in cities all across this country. That's an even bigger tragedy than Katrina, an ongoing tragedy of poverty that has grown every year for the last four years despite the national economy's continued growth.

The most important lesson from this disaster is not that Bush doesn't care about
Black people. It's that poverty is a very real and growing problem in America
despite the fact that you never saw it on TV until the last 2 weeks. This problem continues to fester while Bush's priorities are clearly elsewhere. And the American people haven't even asked our leaders to articulate any clear strategy to deal with poverty. It barely even came up in the last election; neither Democrats nor Republicans talked about it because we as an electorate (including me!) didn't require them to. George Bush and the rest of Washington have governed with little regard for poor people. All too often we rely on capitalism to solve everything while preaching personal responsibility to the poor (which is truly important) without also understanding that the cycle of poverty is exceptionally difficult to break (i.e., most of the people who become poor adults were born into poor
families). It is particularly difficult when you factor in the abysmal quality
of schools in poor areas and other issues such as class-ism and racism. It's time that Americans hold our leaders accountable for coming up with creative solutions to address the issueof poverty in America and around the world. I'll make it a personal goal to do all that I can in that regard.

Peace & Love,
John

Thank you, John. Thank you for expressing it so well. Can I have your babies, please?!?

| posted @ 5:43 PM

:: Screw it! ::

My French professor just cancelled her class today. I'm taking this as a sign. Screw you all, I'm going back home and get my ass back into my bed.

| posted @ 7:59 AM

Sunday, September 25

:: Eh?? ::

Well, the storm is over. It was like a winter showers for us. Just lot of rain and wind. Very peaceful. Anyways, No serious damaged in my area. Just couple of itty bitty tree branches in our yard and the backyard was flooded but it's fine now. The sun was shining happily on us. It's cooler too. Thank god. So, All is good. Sure, I'm a bit jealous that my friends' schools are letting them out until Wednesday and I have to go back tomorrow but hey, all is good here.

Ok, Not really.

I'm really praying that the Dean will have pity on his hard working students and gives us all a day off to catch up on notes, hang out with friends from another colleges that are off, or just to relax for us. I think we deserve it. About 3/4 of the school did pull in to help with the Katrina relief efforts. Come on, guy. That would be a great thank you and it might benefit ya in the future. I could hook your daughter up with the best room in the maternity ward. Hell, I'll throw in some ~~servants~~ personal nurses into the deal. Keep that in mind, guy.

| posted @ 9:10 PM

Saturday, September 24

:: Oh...It's coming right for us...::

Shreveport-Bossier City -- home to thousands of temporary evacuees and a populace worried about heavy rain, high winds and power outages -- braced today for the arrival of the remnants of Hurricane Rita.

Weather forecasters said there could easily be 6 to 12 inches of rain as the storm moves through East Texas and western Louisiana, with outside chances of 8 to 20 inches in some places.

There was some good news: Rita weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane today. But it will probably still be a tropical storm when it reaches this area Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning.

The National Weather Service said the storm could produce tornadoes, flooding rains and sustained winds of 20-30 mph around Shrevpeort, with gusts up to 40 mph. Winds will be higher in areas farther south like the Lufkin-Nacogdoches area, the Weather Service said.

Rains in advance of the storm are expected to arrive tonight.

The rainfall will end the drought that has been plaguing the area, the Weather Service said.

Residents topped off their gas tanks and grabbed up supplies today, worried they might have no electricity in their homes after Rita blows through.

There were very few quick trips to the store, where bottled water and flashlight batteries and non-perishable foods flew off the shelves.

Several gas stations ran out of fuel, even as others got new supplies.

People lined up for sandbags in Shreveport and Bossier City, worried their homes might get flooded. Bossier City limited how many sandbags people could get, while Shreveport urged only those whose homes had flooded in the past to stop by. The wait to get sandbags was an hour at times.KTBS 3

.......Yeah. I'm a bit paranoid now. Maybe, I'm just paranoid after what happened in Wal-Mart. People were going ape shit over some batteries. A fist fight broke out over it, in fact. It's insane here. As soon they said that we will get some of the hurricanes' "love", people went into full metal panic. I'm all for being prepared for a serious storm ( Yes, We are prepared. We got some water, batteries, propane for the deep fryer if need, food--sandwich meat..woot..., and some entertainment...homework and portable c.d. player.) but, trying to kill each other over some batteries is not necessary, people. Yeah, I'm a bit worried but I'm not going around threatening to stab people with a cane nor nearly cause accident on the road because you saw a cloud in the sky. Dark cloud that looks like satan..ok, fine. A cloud that looks like a bunny hugging a heart. Too fucking cutesy wutesy but not "Oh shit!!! It's God! DRIVE FASTER." Stay calm. Shessh. People are fucking crazy when they switch into survival mode.

| posted @ 12:06 AM

Monday, September 19

:: I'm done for now. ::

I'm finished with testing for right now. I've got a music appreciation test on Thursday. Thank god. That means I can get out the class early and escape from listening to my professeur's monotone voice and Ass kisser's squeaky voice. Gawd, I want to just slap her and tell her, "Sucking up won't help ya grades here, ya fucking moron!" Yes, she's one of those people. The back row can't stand her. In fact, We bonded. That's sad but cool at the same time. We're all cool with each other all because of her. AWWW!!

Anyways, I would post something about Hurricane Katrina but decided to just say.....Donate if ya can. The blame game is getting tired now. Shit, The government (state, local, and national) fuck up. There. Now, just focus on helping them and getting them back on their feet. In other words, HELP THE PEOPLE, INSTEAD PROMOTING YOURSELVES (COUGH KANYE BUSH SENATORS GOVERNOR MAYOR COUGH). And, I went against what I said.

*shrugs*

And oh, I've become hooked on "Lost" now. I watched one episode and hooked. Along with that teen drama, "Degrassi: Next Generation." I use to watch the old Degrassi back in England. That show was the shits along with Sweet Valley High and California Dreams. Good stuff.

That's all for now. Random, eh?? I know. Blogging does that.

| posted @ 2:13 PM

Tuesday, September 13

Yeah, I'm busy with school. I've got 2 test on Friday, 1 on Monday, and 1 Tuesday. And, I've got to go to a concert for Music Appreciation class on Saturday. I know. I should be dead by now from stress and lack of sleep. Stupid college and jobs who pay well and require a college education to get it. *insert random swer word of your liking*!

Plus, My stress reliever, PS2, is not here anymore since my brother took it down to his dorm room at LA Tech. Sega Saturn and PS is only thing I have now. Sigh...FF8 again then. Maybe, some Sonic Jamz as well.

Sigh!

I'll try to update on Tuesday. Right now, I'm just a big ball of stress with relaxed hair. Yeah, I feel pretty and stressed at the same time. Weriiiiiiiiiidddddddd.

| posted @ 11:22 PM

Friday, September 2

:: Bush: Katrina Response 'Not Acceptable'::

This is a storm that requires immediate action now," the president said after a daylong tour of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. "I understand the devastation requires more than one day's attention. It's going to require the attention of this country for a long period of time." read More..

No shit, Sherlock. I think about the majority of the American public, the world and the evacutees could have told you that from day one. It's all over the news, buddy. Sure, the news is giving about 55% of what's really going on but the pictures of the damage and the people crying for help should have said, "Oh Shit. They need help. Let's get somebody down there."

Gahh! So fucking frustrating.

| posted @ 10:40 PM