« Double Talk |
Main
| Human Trafficking: In Our Own Backyards »
September 12, 2005
Hurricane Katrina
Why is it that we can so quickly put together an agenda for war, but not an agenda for keeping communities safe and healthy? This past week we once again experienced another example of what happens when there is not an agenda in place for the most vulnerable people in our society. Women's funds and organizations have been saying for years that a new agenda needs to be created that spends at least as much time and resources making sure that the 12.7% of the American population living in poverty can stay above water as is spent on making sure that those in the top 5% continue to amass more assets. Instead, 5.4 million more individuals fell below the poverty threshold since 2000.
Those in government seem to have the political will to pass huge tax cuts for the rich (even when many of those in the top 5% say no) as well as the political will to cut domestic programs that provide the basics for communities, both in this country and around the world. Where is the political will to invest in the 28% of New Orleans residents who were living below the poverty line, more than double the national average, to move ahead in life?
Are we surprised that violence has erupted in the midst of this human tragedy? Are we surprised that most of us watching the news reports coming from the Gulf Coast knew early on there was a tragedy in the making, but somehow Washington was not aware of the magnitude of the devastation?
Why is it that we at home got the message loud and clear with communication systems that seem primitive compared to the federal government's? This eerily echoes the repeated statements by UN weapons inspectors that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Again, those of us watching and reading the news seemed to get that message much earlier than our government. Why do those with the deepest access to information seem to be the last to know? Maybe, just maybe, they are listening to the wrong sources. Maybe women, among others, who have been active in their communities should become one of the new sources of information.
We in the women's funding community have been listening to women for years as a source for understanding the challenges and solutions faced by communities around the globe. We have a realistic understanding of women and their families. We know this because we listen to people on the ground as we ourselves are positioned on the ground. We know this because we pay attention to our communities prior to disasters striking. We know because we have a worldview and power-sharing that includes the whole community. Women around the world know what is going on in their communities. Maybe it's time we all listen. What we would hear is this: Louisiana has the second highest rate of poverty among all 50 states, second only to Mississippi, and 84% of people living in poverty in New Orleans were black. In 2000, the median income of all female-headed households in the Big Easy was just $16,850. In other words, the women displaced by Hurricane Katrina have years of experience of hard-won survival. In times of disaster, women are not just passive victims but vital responders and rebuilders of their families and communities. They should be tapped for their knowledge of environmental resources and the community at large, and recruited for their ability to take accurate census of survivors and immediate needs, perceive imminent threats of gender violence, direct the right aid and services to households, and to account for the elderly and people with disabilities. Effective disaster relief brings the most opportunity, dignity, and resilience back to those rebuilding their lives when survivors have a say.
Even if we did not listen before, we have the opportunity now. We need to listen when women tell their stories of violence and are concerned because their restraining orders are no longer in force or their shelters of safe haven no longer exist. We need to listen when women tell their stories about poverty that pulls entire families down until survival is so threadbare that one act of nature sends thousands into despairing conditions.
We cannot talk about being a democracy if all of those who live and work in the community are not at the table. A democracy is not in full play if we, the people and our representative government, continue to ignore a third of our citizenship. Imagine, if we can ignore women right within the boundaries of our own country, then how easy to ignore those an ocean away.
As a prosperous nation, we spend our time thinking we have something to share and to give to other countries when catastrophe strikes. Now we know we have something to learn. Women from around the world are listening to each other about disaster relief and recovery, and the lessons learned ring true whether from Sri Lanka after the tsunami , Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch, or the U.S. Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Women learn lessons together and we have to listen.
We need to listen to the women of the community whether one state away or an ocean away, they will tell us the real story.
Posted by Chris Grumm at September 12, 2005 08:19 PM
Thank you for your article stating such truths that need to be heard by all those who have no clue what it is like to live in poverty level, yet working hard every day with minimum pay.
The rich have no idea what it is like, nor do they care yet. Not even after Katrina and all the other horrendous disasters around the world.
The powerful men whose wifes don't even think about us. They are too busy spending their time buying expensive clothes, their luxery homes, wondering what they can come up with to outdo each other in everything. Prancing their spoiled brats around in extreme luxury. Who they will teach to frown, look down at those of us who can't afford to buy expensive toothpaste, much less worry about which private exclusive school they fight each other over, when we have the poorest school systems in the world. Right here in the USA.
They have no idea what it is like to work hard with their hands. When ones hand are starting to cripple with rhuemotoid arthritis. Swollen hands 3 times their size, getting up hours earlier then necessary so that the swolling will go down so one can use their hands at work.
Feet in such pain when standing on them, yet knowing that one has to not just stand, but carry the heavy loads,buckets of food that were prepped to make for sandwiches at your job. Back's cringing at just the thought of all the strain put on them for 8 hrs a day ( if lucky 8), then having to go home and do all the necessary work at home yet. Who have no clue what is like to care for their sick children, as they have their nannies to do that. They have to worry which desginer dress to wear to another party.
They don't have to worry when their car is close to breaking down, they have 3 or 5 cars to choose from, with chauffers. Not understanding that a car break down will take from groceries, and all the other bills. That an unexpected medical emergency will set things back further. That our children will be overlooked by the medical field because the funding is taken away at hospitals more and more it seems. They don't know what is it like to be turned away from an emergency room because one doesn't have insurance.
That shoes needed not only for work, but for children can't be bought as the price of gasoline is eating up any thing left over....but, that is the huge problem. Their is never anything left over. One's paycheck is gone before it reaches our hands.
Those without transportation who have to stand in the snow, rain waiting for the bus, if there is a bus service in their area. The worn out clothes that the woman is praying will hold up through another wash.
The windows in the home, broken, hung up with ole sheets not being able to afford a cheap set of curtains, doesn't filter into the rich woman's mind. They can afford $5,000 designer made ones. They don't understand that all the food they waste daily could feed a poor family for 2 or 3 days.
The rich forget that us poor, hard working, woman are the ones who are putting them in their luxury status, for without us hard working poor people, they would have nothing. Yet, we are over looked daily, every minute by the government, and we are the first ones that they take from to give to their rich friends. The cuts in medicad, medicare, food stamp programs, the education.
Why should they care? They have it made with their rich indulged pampered self. During Katrina, after Katrina did one, just one rich family open their doors, their hearts to take in one poor family? Damn sure didn't. It was the poor families who opened their doors, their hearts, shared what little they had with those who were completely wiped out, everything gone, and the government continued to neglect the poor once again.
Women have always been stepped down on, pushed into the corners, no rights to be heard any where. Women have always been delegated as the ones who bore the brunt of man's superiority, when in reality it is us many women who are the stronger ones, who have the ability to keep the family going when times are harder then hard.
It is a constant battle for women, yet, what just takes my anger to the fullest rage is when I see a woman who gets into a powerful position she turns on us women. Her sisters in blood. The core of the families, that all of a sudden the powerful rich woman forgets. It matters not the color of their skin. The color of the heart is what matters, and it changes.
I am not suppose to work with my health problems. If I keep working at the kind of job I am doing, within 2 yrs, I will so crippled up that I will end up in a wheel chair that I can't afford. I have no choices about not being able to not work. Without me working, my family goes under further.
Not many rich women could stand in the pain I am in daily, doing what I do, as their pampered hands, sheltered feet, heartless hearts are so ingrained in self indulgence they would collapse at the end of the day, and need to go to their private spa and spend a week at a resort to recouperate.
Us poor women are the strenght, the forces behind our children, wanting for them a better life. We push them, we try to instill in them, good values, to look after each other, to keep their hearts full of empathy for another human being. We try to teach them not hatred towards another human being but understanding of such.
It is hard to teach your child kindness when ones child is belittled by the rich, snobby spoiled brats who think it is funny to insult the poor.
It use to be honorable to be poor. It use to be no shame in being poor. Yet, in today's society it is now becoming, and has been for a long time a CRIME to be poor.
What a shame that only 2 women are sitting in those positions, that will have very little say in anything. But then, is that so new?
We use to have leaders in our government who cared, who tried to help the poor. Now all we have our ones who have no shame whatsoever, NONE, who show NO remorse at their bigotry, racist, prejudice selves towards the poor, the disadvantaged. They don't even stop their vacations to be horrified that people in their own country were dying, left abandoned, in the most despearte situations ever in this country, worse then 911. They did nothing whatsoever to help those people.
Sadly, once again, it is the women, children who are shattered, left alone, with not one rich person caring about us, whether we were there in Katirina or not. I am talking for all us poor women, poor hard working women, with a family that pays higher prices for everything because we poor.
It's ironic that electic companies make us poor people put up higher deposits when we are slow on paying our bills. We have to shelf out more money on rent deposits because one is poor. We have to pay more for cars, because we are poor.
Those rich women need to come down and live on my level, and every poor hard working woman's level for just 2 weeks. They wouldn't know what too do. Their kids need to come with them.
I have written letters to congressmen, senators, and even the president, challenging them to come live at my level for 1 week. The responses I got where from pathetic to funny. One response was sorry at this time, senator so and so is not making a decision on this bill in front of the senate right now..........
So please keep up the fight for us poor women, left behind women who battle the forces of daily life with little else then our courage, our abilities to keep going when ones heart, feet, hands, spirit is so broken, yet we have no choices but to do so, because we don't and can't afford to give up at all.......
pardon any grammatical errors, misplaced or not placed comma's, quotes, or anything else. I personally don't care right now. I am more concerned about how I am going to pay my bills, then ensuring that this letter is all prim, and proper.
dinah
Posted by: Dinah at October 10, 2005 03:29 AM
