On August 29, 2005, Katrina makes landfall and the levees do not hold as the Army knew they would not and the water sweeps life out from under the living.
In New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, Black people on rooftops wave signs hastily scrawled on pieces of cardboard: “Help us.” The people plead with their bodies and their signs, sure as the helicopters fly over that their government is coming for them. Will help them.
Instead the government flies by.
Over thirty thousand residents stream into the Louisiana Superdome, a building whose roof would leak, whose air-conditioning and refrigeration would fail, where, without enough food, water, restrooms, or restroom supplies, these residents would live for five days. As the Superdome grows more dank with a stench that is a mixture of rotting food, urine, and feces, the government relocates people to the Astrodome, over 350 miles away from their homes, in Houston. The Astrodome and the organizational wherewithal of Houston’s local government save the day and save lives. Some evacuees will stay for weeks, some for months.
The former First Lady of the United States, Barbara Bush, takes a tour of the Astrodome on September 5, 2005, when it is brand-new in its role as savior. She chortles, “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
Most of us Black folks are Democrats. We believe as Democrats that our government is an organization that will be there for us even when our fellow citizens who see us as other seek to shut us out kick us out shut us down but in late August 2005 we those who live in the Gulf Coast we who have loved ones there we who have no connection to the area but watch on television learn that our government has had no plan for us.
Them Niggers should be grateful, she might as well have said. Here, have a hot dog. We gave you have a damn hot dog. Dog. Be grateful.
Pledge your allegiance.
Stand for it.
Stand.