RE: [scifinoir2] The entire community is now a toxic waste dump
The truth of this is that we're seeing problems in New Orleans, sure, but they're not unique.. Many--most of these problems--aren't unique to this city, or only a result of the hurricance. When you start talking about poverty, intentional (or casually ignorant) racism, politcal ineffectiveness, government apathy, lack of services, lack of jobs, lack of affordable housing, the rich and powerful getting the best places to live and the best treatment, environmental racism--you're talking about many, many cities in America. The neighborhood in which I was raised in Fort Worth was flooded out way back in '49 when my parents had just moved there. Their new home took on seven feet of water. Many white areas weren't affected. Why? Because the city had started building levees to manage the Trinity River, and of course the white areas were done first. I recall as a child--too ignorant of the ways of the world--spending hours staring in fascination at the constant stream of dump trucks dropping loads of the city's garbage in the giant dumping ground that lay less than 100 yards from my back porch. Too young to understand environmental racism, I never asked why huge piles of trash were dumped in my neighborhood, but not those of my white schoolmates. Nor, as I was being entertained by the possibly dangerous wastes being buried in the local soil, did my young mind know to ask why my neighborhood was bordered on one side by the dump, another by the railroad, a third by a major freeway, and a fourth by a giant truck repair facility and dogfood manufacturing plant. Later the city closed the all-Black elementary school less than a mile away, turning it into a low-security prison for deadbeat dads and drunks. Everytime I go home for a visit I get to pass that school turned prison, turn under the railroad trestle onto my mom's street, and see the vast expanse of grass that grows over the (thankfully) now defunct dumping ground. As an adult, I get it in ways I never could as a child. The hurricane is forcing a renewed focus of the poor and helpless and Black in New Orleans, but let's hope it doesn't stop there. Let's hope the politicans and cops and everyday citizens all remember that, if they want to see people to help, to aid there desperately poor brothers, and to find places to right the wrongs of the world, they don't have to go all the way to New Orleans. Like the young child I was, all they have to do is look in their own backyards. -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Xavier Moon Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 10:04 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Subject: [scifinoir2] The entire community is now a toxic waste dum This article is chilling: The rich will not suffer from any of this. Only the poor. It is a taste of things to come. Really makes a person want to slap a few rich people. Fitness first, ecosystem after, if at all. How could it be otherwise? Indeed. XM What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are. - Epictitus The Gulf Coast is drowning in a poisonous stew, people are dying from waterborne bacteria, and federal funds have been drained by years of pro-industry policies. Katrina is one of the worst environmental catastrophes in U.S. history. Sept. 9, 2005 | From 500 feet in the air, Chris Wells, a geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, looked with dismay on the landscape pounded and then abandoned by Hurricane Katrina. As Wells flew on Wednesday above the Louisiana coastline, across New Orleans, the marshlands south of the city, and over Mississippi, nearly every tree was snapped, their limbs twisted around in a braid, the bark shredded right off the trunk. The marshland below looked as though somebody had taken a spatula and scraped away the marsh grasses, leaving a sea of mud. Aside from a number of shorebirds, and one 8-foot alligator swimming about 20 miles offshore, Wells saw no wildlife. What he did see were streaks of oil, some miles long and 200 yards wide. It was on any body of water of any significance, he says. Hundreds of thousands of inland acres are covered with a spotty sheen of oil. The landscape right now is absolutely bizarre and unreal, Wells says, from his home in Lafayette, La. It's emotionally draining. Even if nobody was hurt, it's heartbreaking to see what has happened to the environment. ... (Remainder removed) http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/09/wasteland/ - - - - - - - - - - - - By Rebecca Clarren [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Life without art music? Keep the arts alive today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/FXrMlA/dnQLAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on
RE: [scifinoir2] The entire community is now a toxic waste dump
Dude, I hope all is well with you and your family... Keith Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:The truth of this is that we're seeing problems in New Orleans, sure, but they're not unique.. Many--most of these problems--aren't unique to this city, or only a result of the hurricance. When you start talking about poverty, intentional (or casually ignorant) racism, politcal ineffectiveness, government apathy, lack of services, lack of jobs, lack of affordable housing, the rich and powerful getting the best places to live and the best treatment, environmental racism--you're talking about many, many cities in America. The neighborhood in which I was raised in Fort Worth was flooded out way back in '49 when my parents had just moved there. Their new home took on seven feet of water. Many white areas weren't affected. Why? Because the city had started building levees to manage the Trinity River, and of course the white areas were done first. I recall as a child--too ignorant of the ways of the world--spending hours staring in fascination at the constant stream of dump trucks dropping loads of the city's garbage in the giant dumping ground that lay less than 100 yards from my back porch. Too young to understand environmental racism, I never asked why huge piles of trash were dumped in my neighborhood, but not those of my white schoolmates. Nor, as I was being entertained by the possibly dangerous wastes being buried in the local soil, did my young mind know to ask why my neighborhood was bordered on one side by the dump, another by the railroad, a third by a major freeway, and a fourth by a giant truck repair facility and dogfood manufacturing plant. Later the city closed the all-Black elementary school less than a mile away, turning it into a low-security prison for deadbeat dads and drunks. Everytime I go home for a visit I get to pass that school turned prison, turn under the railroad trestle onto my mom's street, and see the vast expanse of grass that grows over the (thankfully) now defunct dumping ground. As an adult, I get it in ways I never could as a child. The hurricane is forcing a renewed focus of the poor and helpless and Black in New Orleans, but let's hope it doesn't stop there. Let's hope the politicans and cops and everyday citizens all remember that, if they want to see people to help, to aid there desperately poor brothers, and to find places to right the wrongs of the world, they don't have to go all the way to New Orleans. Like the young child I was, all they have to do is look in their own backyards. -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Xavier Moon Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 10:04 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Subject: [scifinoir2] The entire community is now a toxic waste dum This article is chilling: The rich will not suffer from any of this. Only the poor. It is a taste of things to come. Really makes a person want to slap a few rich people. Fitness first, ecosystem after, if at all. How could it be otherwise? Indeed. XM What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are. - Epictitus The Gulf Coast is drowning in a poisonous stew, people are dying from waterborne bacteria, and federal funds have been drained by years of pro-industry policies. Katrina is one of the worst environmental catastrophes in U.S. history. Sept. 9, 2005 | From 500 feet in the air, Chris Wells, a geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, looked with dismay on the landscape pounded and then abandoned by Hurricane Katrina. As Wells flew on Wednesday above the Louisiana coastline, across New Orleans, the marshlands south of the city, and over Mississippi, nearly every tree was snapped, their limbs twisted around in a braid, the bark shredded right off the trunk. The marshland below looked as though somebody had taken a spatula and scraped away the marsh grasses, leaving a sea of mud. Aside from a number of shorebirds, and one 8-foot alligator swimming about 20 miles offshore, Wells saw no wildlife. What he did see were streaks of oil, some miles long and 200 yards wide. It was on any body of water of any significance, he says. Hundreds of thousands of inland acres are covered with a spotty sheen of oil. The landscape right now is absolutely bizarre and unreal, Wells says, from his home in Lafayette, La. It's emotionally draining. Even if nobody was hurt, it's heartbreaking to see what has happened to the environment. ... (Remainder removed) http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/09/wasteland/ - - - - - - - - - - - - By Rebecca Clarren [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] SPONSORED LINKS Genre magazine - YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group scifinoir2 on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of
