Dawn Is Me

What do you mean, the page isn’t filled yet???

Have you ever noticed that race relations in America go down the toilet whenever Republicans control the White House?

Why do you suppose that is?

This, from the New York Times (registration required), is hilarious.

I guess any set of folks who can find a pro-gay agenda in SpongeBob Squarepants can find conservatism in penguins.

Rap on, brother.
Rap on.

People are funny. In the midst of the terrible tragedy this past week in New Orleans, the inescapable fact of race rears its head. When we speak of it, we are shushed. “It’s not about race. Race is irrelevant.”

So we are told.

But when we are confronted by a news media that depicts white survivors “finding” food in a nearby grocery store, while black survivors are “looting” to find the same thing in the same kind of place, we notice.

When there is a discernable difference between the response to a disaster of which the majority of victims are white and the response when the majority of victims of black …

or when, as in this case, the evacuation plan is built around citizens driving themselves out of town in a city where 85% of whites but only 65% of blacks have cars …

We notice that, too.

We certainly notice when people who are survivors of a terrible natural catastrophe are turned into a desparate, angry mob by such a lacksadaisical response, and then treated and spoken of as if they are rioters instead of victims.

We notice all of these things. And we remember.

Which is why, when the Republican leadership frets about what the current crisis is doing to the so-called big push by the party to appeal to more black voters, I just have to laugh.

In his radio address todday, President Bush said that “we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters all along the Gulf Coast, and we will not rest until we get this right and the job is done.”

Too late, Mr. Bush.

You can put your sheets and your burning crosses away in dark closets but, when push comes to shove, you always show your hand.

Run, run, run
but you sho’ can’t hide …