Bee ~
The "postings" were your two, immediate ones; not a generic reference.
You promote your 'cleverness' as much as you do anything here. Little that's Leonard appreciative.
Regarding Demetris, I just wish you would take responsibility for your own fantasies ~ "identification with the aggressor" phenomena and all that.
My postings on this thread were corraled from the beginning by me as being my own record of this horrific event. They just happen to be on a thread I started [imagine that]. They were identified by me as being exactly what they were. I condensed as much as I could from a lot I was reading and seeing, rather dispassionately and objectively, at first. I wanted a record and provided myself a record. How it is that you ~ and some others ~ apparently feel compelled to read what I've written is beyond me. No armed guards ~ National Guard, if you will ~ took you at gunpoint and directed your nose into the lowly space where you appear to feel my postings reside and forced you to read them allowed [to ensure that you really
were reading them]. As far as other people, yes, they obviously do have the Internet. However, they may actually have had interest in what was occurring here, but not enough time on the computer to come here, plus "all over the map" of news coverage. Someone may have actually appreciated the thumbnail sketch of what was happening.
My reaction to it is not a stage-form bleeding heart. How others feel about it is up to them to or not to say. It could appear that you give these matters a few, cumulative hours of your time ~ and then take a few more slugs of that fine wine and tequila you buy, and on with life deep in your velvet seat. It happens to occupy a bigger space in me than that. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that I'm glad to be me. Compassion goes beyond wondering if
oneself should stock up on supplies. In fact, compassion tends more toward imagining and contrasting a hot day, where one is blithely able to reach into a refrigerator for a bite to eat and a glass of cold water; vs. being helplessly stuck in the blazing sun for 12 hours and another 12 in the faded light and stark darkness with nothing but fear and hopefully some faith, which for many failed, anyway. No home anymore and other major losses for the vast majority. Seeing people where
they are at, right now; not where
you might, possibly, someday be.
If the details are just too bothersome for you, may I make a constructive suggestion. Stop reading. If my speaking on my personal reaction to it all is too bothersome for you, another constructive suggestion. Stop reading. As you've aptly noted regarding your disregard of how I might feel upon your death [which, for the record, I would feel very badly about ~ and with my not being a Hell, fire, and brimstone Christian, judging and deeming you a sinner would be someone else's department]; my same disregard prevails regarding whether you like my focusing on the hurricane situation and its many, claimed and, as yet, unclaimed lives ~ but so severely disrupted as to have staked a claim, regardless, and still, perhaps, the final claim to be made.
If my encouragement and/or pleas for people to actually
do something is a discomfort to you, take another slug of alcohol and numb yourself a little more. Turn off your TV, as well, as you're likely to encounter another foolish one of us, from locals to agency workers to celebrities, asking you to do the same.
The "moral superiority" contention with me was regarding P. Bush. I am not alone. Many leaders and people, worldwide, including some of his own, strongest, Republican supporters are agreeing. It has been an abominable shame. You might be surprized how slow help would come to your own, immigrant community. As much as you may be trying to integrate and become a thriving capitalist in this materialistic society we live in, when push came to shove, you would not be first on the rescue priority sheet ~ not by a long shot.
Yes, ones can think about it themselves. And I can talk about it myself. Guess what. You've landed in a country of free speech [for the most part]. I come from that inborn and parentally-encouraged perspective; and in this area of cyberspace we share, it still actually exists.
When it comes to having some style and some taste ~ if you and YdF, singly or in collaboration, offer classes on same, you'd better charge the highest fees and employ a great marketer for advertising your services. Otherwise, don't expect your enrollment to be high. For those duped into attending, don't expect your end-of-class [an ironic and unexpected double meaning there!] evaluations to be favourable.
Ahhh ~ the complacency that
religion provides, as long as it's someone else. I didn't hear those platitudes when your dear friend died the most comfortable of deaths, even privileged to play major aspects of it out ahead of time ~ and in the safety and comfort of an intact home and friends.
How we part from life, being left to excruciatingly suffer, and how we are abandoned by our fellow human beings, and our departure becomes tragically premature as a result,
is a concern for me. The "bloody murder" was not committed by the hurricane. It was committed by people.
Yes, don't "fuss that much," Bee [and Laurie]. It makes it
sooooo tedious for others to have to read. So discomforting on some level that they must rail against it, in fact. "OK, die bitch, die!" ~ in trying to insult me, you may have inadvertently [or not] hit on what has been spoken, or at least felt, by those in decision-making positions. When already in the self-same country, taking a full,
two days, before making a
fly-over, speaks to magnitudes of realities. At some point, I will peruse the photo-ops, available via Internet, and see how many Blacks were hugged and kissed. The also much-delayed, in-person visits were restricted to the communities where Whites were far more likely to be encountered for 'comforting.' The
most devastated area [as difficult as it is to imagine that there could
be a "most"] was personally ignored, in more ways than one.
Of course, you would fire me ~ because my politically-incorrect action might affect your bottom line. Customer lost. Profit. Such a
GOOD 'American' you've become; or, perhaps, that's what drew you here in the first place. That precious priority. Dollars over people ~ well, unless they're your own. But then, ethnocentricity and egocentricity are some of the easier lessons learned when hitting these shores, anyway; and immersion learning works particularly well for those trying to assuage their guilt for having left their homeland, rather than remaining to try to make things better, for
all, there, those left behind. Do you at least write? Send photos?
However, Bee, some things are worth getting fired for ~ perhaps, pricking a conscience into the body's taking action; perhaps, only highlighting hypocrisy and bigotry and lip service to caring and concern. This happens to be an employer who has employed a Black woman, an incrediby decent woman, by any standard; who doesn't just bring her Bible to work, but lives out its principles in kindness of both word and deed, in honour of the main character of the Book she reads. One who is concerned for others, and who has worked hard her entire life to raise an equally-decent family. These facts are readily acknowledged by this owner; yet, approximately 15 years ago, when I first went to work with her, she took me inside her home with her after
three weeks of my part-time employment. In conversation, where I presumed it was a given, I learned that after
23 years of reliable, faithful, full-time employment, by hand, making salads and other delicious items for the salad bar and whatever catering needs there were, that woman had
never been inside that house. When I expressed my shock at this, and my chagrin was expressed through my citing the goodness of this woman, including some of the details I've provided here, the response came as though I were, somehow, naieve, with her matter-of-fact, "Oh, yes,
I know, but she's
still a
nigger ~ and she'll
never be allowed in
my home." Even though Florida has benefited by the influx of many, broader-minded northerners and people from other countries, the area where I live is ~ for the most part ~ still the "Deep South" in its mentality. This is only one of many scenarios I could provide, but then
that might prick parts of that velvet seat you occupy, too. I see it, I hear it, in virtually every segment of everyday life, and have since my arrival.
Texas ~ the land of lily-white Bush ~ is the same, if not moreso. Do not think that coming from that ingrained mentality, in addition to the status of privilege, is not part of the deeply-interwoven fabric from which decisions are wrought. Do not think ~ not for one minute ~ that race has not entered into the response to this tragedy ~ lest you be wrong. Do not think that response to the injured and killed, financial district, employees would have been compromised in any, similar fashion ~ and responsibility been abdicated to its having been someone else's; some other, governmental entity.
Oh, my ~ the loss of a job working for you. How tragic. You, who no doubt, remain at the height of professionalism, at all times. Especially, in the face of humanness. Such power, such control, you would have exercised. What a loss that would be ~ an employer from whom I have so much of value to learn.
Heart still bleeding in Florida,
Elizabeth
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