New York – To African- Americans, Hurricane Katrina has become a generation-defining catastrophe – a disaster with a predominantly black toll, tinged with racism. They have rallied to the cause with an unprecedented outpouring of activism and generosity.
They are not only donating money but also gathering supplies, taking in friends and relatives, and heading south to help shoulder the burden of their people.
“You’d have to go back to slavery or the burning of black towns to find a comparable event that has affected black people this way,” said Darnell Hunt, a sociologist and head of the African-American studies department at UCLA.
“Something about this is making people remember their own personal injustices,” said author Damali Ayo, whose book “How to Rent a Negro” takes a satirical look at race relations. “You don’t look at Rodney King and say, ‘I remember when I got beat up.’ But people remember being neglected, unimportant, overlooked, thought of as ‘less than.’ That’s a very common experience for black people.”
Seventy-one percent of blacks say the disaster shows that racial inequality remains a major problem in America, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted Tuesday and Wednesday among 1,000 Americans; 56 percent of whites feel this was not a major problem.
And while 66 percent of blacks think the government’s response would have been faster if most of the victims had been white, 77 percent of whites disagreed, the poll said.
“The face, the cover has been pulled off the invisible poor,” said the Rev. Ronald Braxton of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.
Braxton spoke as his congregation loaded a 50-foot tractor- trailer with diapers, food, water and other supplies destined for African Methodist Episcopal churches in Jackson, Miss., and Baton Rouge, La. The church raised $20,000 Sunday to send to the national AME relief effort.
Individuals have also stepped up. Kimberly Lowe of Philadelphia signed up on that city’s website to host an evacuee in a spare bedroom. “They just probably want to talk to regular folks and be in a real home,” Lowe said. “There’s nothing like being home.”
Billionaire Mississippi native Oprah Winfrey is bringing her top-rated show to the Katrina zone, and famed defense lawyer Willie Gary is planning to transport victims in his 737 jet.
Public television talk-show host Tavis Smiley said, “I’ve seen black folk come together around any number of issues. It’s usually either a head or a heart issue.”
Hip-hop hitmaker Timbaland said that he is renting trucks, buying clothes and toys and heading “to the trenches.”
Hip-hop legend Russell Simmons said, “This is the most devastating thing to their community they’ve seen in their lifetime. I’ve never seen a bigger outpouring of love and giving. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
