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"We Deserve and Demand Help"

Photo credit: Josh Halley/Southern Digest Some 250 storm-weary students, faculty, staff and others from Xavier University, including this toddler, were taken to a shelter hastily assembled at Southern University's Clifford T. Seymour Hall, the men's gym.

By Joy Johnson
Black College Wire

All the devastation on TV has driven me up the wall! Planning, leadership and control in this situation are revoltingly unorganized.

Everyone needs to hammer down on our government and show them that we are Americans, too. No, we don't live in Crawford, Texas, on a big ranch. No, we don't live in Beverly Hills.

Nor do we live in Indonesia (which gets better and faster help than we do), but we are just as human as people in those places. We demand and deserve help -- NOW!

For someone who has lived in and attended school in New Orleans, this is very difficult to watch. I'm so ashamed of and sickened by our federal government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Red Cross claim to have raised so much money.

They probably have, but people are still in the Convention Center and still on top of their homes starving, dangerously dehydrated and losing all hope. If this were in another location with different demographics, people would have been evacuated no later than Aug. 31.

I write this on Sept. 3, and the Red Cross is proud that they have a whole 100,000 people out of the city. Too bad there are still more than 300,000 people left in the Convention Center and others still on top of their roofs waiting to be rescued.

We just found my cousins, who were on their roof for three days with nothing but a prayer! They had no food or water and were losing faith.

They said they constantly saw helicopters flying around but not picking people up or even dropping food off. The National Guard and Coast Guard are speeding only down main streets. People who are on small streets and side streets aren't being seen or helped.

FEMA took over, claiming it had everything under control. Miscommunication is the core problem of the entire situation. It took FEMA five days to get there and those people are expected to be gracious.

The helicopters are constantly flying over their heads as if they are going to take them away from what they know as hell, but they don't. Why?

The authorities are doing work, but it's too little, too late! Everything they are boasting about should have been done days ago. If it had been taken care of days ago, today we would be hearing talks of rebuilding the great cities of New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi.

Another issue reporters claim to explain is looting. Looting is defined as goods taken in war or by robbery. Is this to say we are at war? And if so, with whom? The government vs. the poverty-stricken people who just want to be delivered from hell on earth? Looting isn't looting when you're looking for food for your family and friends.

Looting isn't looting when you're getting diapers and baby formula for infants or food and water for children. Looting isn't looting when you're using a boat that may not be yours in order to save yourself and others in need of help.

These people are taking the middle man, government, out of the situation. If they can save each other and feed each other while the Coast Guard and National Guard are supposed to be doing that, then the Coast Guard and National Guard are needed only to transport these people to another location. This is a disastrous and nauseating situation.

Joy Johnson is a junior mass communication major at Xavier University who is attending the University of Texas at Dallas while Xavier is closed because of hurricane damage. This essay appeared in The Hilltop at Howard University.

Posted Sept. 7, 2005