Email Article

Printable Page

Tired of the Blame Game

By Carla Aaron-Lopez
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Aaron-Daye/Campus Echo Carla Aaron-Lopez

When I saw him, he broke down on television speaking about how he lost his wife in a flood, and the last thing she said to him was "Take care of our kids!"

The sole black man was wearing a yellow Akademiks T-shirt and h u g g i n g one of his children as he talked to a CNN reporter.

He's alone without a home. He lost his wife and the ability to provide for his children. H e has to start all over again without his wife.

This is what Hurricane Katrina did. Nearly one million people were affected.

Now that Katrina has trashed historic New Orleans and parts of Mississippi, the blame game has begun across the nation. I've never seen such holier- than-thou finger-pointing while people are dying.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is being blamed for not being prepared. The Bush administration is being blamed for not acknowledging an American crisis quickly.

There is so much to be done that the blame game is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors. A large group of people must rebuild their lives or else they have nothing.

FEMA, the Red Cross and other nonprofit organizations are doing all they can. We're paying so much attention to entertainers in their opposition or support of Bush that we're forgetting there are people still missing in a toxic lake.

We know Bush didn't respond well and more help should have been quickly provided.

Are you helping Nagin in his cry to help his citizens of New Orleans?

I'm deafened by endless accusations and questions that will not and cannot be answered by Bush, Kanye West or the American public. I really don't care what anyone has to say anymore. I'm fighting my desire to leave school and devote my time to volunteering in New Orleans, not because I'm an American, but because I'm human and my emotions are clouding my thoughts.

We got slapped with a devastating situation that knocked out our perspective and made us play the blame game about race, class and survival.

In this state of emergency, healing New Orleans should be a grass-roots operation. The people, government and big businesses all need to come together to rebuild it from the ground up -� from population to culture. We can sit back and blame all we want, but the crisis won't be solved efficiently that way.

All we can do now is support rebuilding New Orleans and help connect people with their families again.

And this is as objective as I can get without playing the blame game.

Carla Aaron-Lopez is a senior majoring in art at North Carolina Central University and production manager at the Campus Echo.

Posted Sept. 20, 2005