Sunday, September 11, 2005

Katrina evokes questions in Africa over racism, refugees in U.S.

This article is interesting because many Africans I've talked to over the years always thought that America was the land of the free and everybody had access to the same types of opportunities. Most of them always echoed the same sentiment, that African Americans were wasting their opportunities. If there is a silver lining in this Katrina catastrophe as this article suggests, it is this - the world got a chance to see some of the obstacles that African Americans are still facing in this country and that not everyone have access to the same opportunities.

This is my favorite part:

Charles Onyango-Obbo, a managing editor of Kenya's Nation newspaper group, wrote for Thursday's editions: "Thanks to Katrina, I now know that some places of America have never seen schools and electricity just like in rural Africa."

Although this statement isn't totally correct because people do have electricity, and they do go to schools, the living conditions on the other hand for many darker skinned blacks in Louisiana are deplorable. In addition, the school systems don’t adequately prepare many to even take the exit exam in their senior year to obtain their high school diploma. There is a lot wrong with Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina just magnified some of the horrors and indignities that blacks, and poor people are suffering at the hands of this society and the world now knows about America's best kept secret.
posted by Cynthia   Permalink| Comments(0)|

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