Saturday, September 10, 2005
Hurricane Katrina: America's Shallow Fervor
I am consistently amazed and appalled by America’s ability to respond to situations of tragedy with such shallow fervor. Whatever hints of this concept were planted by the frantic flag-waving response to 9/11 have blossomed into a depressing certainty in the wake of the response to hurricane Katrina. My despair over the overtly aphoristic, pre-packaged soundbytes of Americans coping with tragedy is only deepened by the evaporation of criminals’ consciences that seemed temporarily invoked by the collective human victimization during 9/11 and the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
In September and October of 2001, American flags suddenly plastered the doors and windows of every home, office and passing car as if someone had taken a giant paintbrush and splattered red, white and blue all over the country. After the tsunami in southeast Asia, a flood of sympathy and cash flowed out of Americans’ pockets and into the waiting and deserving arms of relief organizations. Americans were so anxious to give, in fact, that the channels through which money was funneled clogged. Americans were so anxious to contribute that their money took months to arrive in the crippled areas of the world, waiting in limbo while administrators scratched at the enormous volume of backlogged donations. Americans were so anxious to donate to tsunami funds that dozens of other worthy charities in the country suffered critical blows.
Now, like a distance runner sprinting too often too early, we are stumbling towards the next lap too weary to summon our previous enthusiasm. Three monumental tragedies in the past four years have beleaguered the American conscious. Now as if jaded to tragedy, as if we’ve waited long enough to tell a morbid joke and laugh, American’s have begun to abuse national tragedy for personal gain. After 9/11 no one even considered looting or damaging abandoned Manhattan stores. After the tsunami no one even considered siphoning from the flow of money destined for southeastern Asia. But now, in the wake of nearly unprecedented damage at the hands of nature, New Orleans has been racked by nearly unprecedented and callous crime at the hands of Americans.
I would like to believe that the immediate outpour of American sympathies have been genuine, but when violence and fraud tread so closely on its heels, this is a difficult line to accept. I hope that the mainstream of America remains as awestruck and genuinely empathic as this catastrophe begs. It seems, though, that whatever aspect of the world tragedies had shamed scam artists – who seem uniquely rampant thanks to American society and culture – into developing a conscience has faded. Donation scams have cropped up everywhere.
Though this kind of looting and scamming seems to thrive uniquely through American society, it is true that it does not reflect the majority of Americans. For this I am thankful, but it is still disconcerting that Americans tend to identify more with soundbytes and sensationalist headlines than in-depth objective reporting. It’s still disconcerting that Americans want their news and empathy as pre-packaged as their bigmacs. People get furious without ever knowing exactly what it is they are talking about. Often times it is all they can do to regurgitate the soundbytes they are fed.
In September and October of 2001, American flags suddenly plastered the doors and windows of every home, office and passing car as if someone had taken a giant paintbrush and splattered red, white and blue all over the country. After the tsunami in southeast Asia, a flood of sympathy and cash flowed out of Americans’ pockets and into the waiting and deserving arms of relief organizations. Americans were so anxious to give, in fact, that the channels through which money was funneled clogged. Americans were so anxious to contribute that their money took months to arrive in the crippled areas of the world, waiting in limbo while administrators scratched at the enormous volume of backlogged donations. Americans were so anxious to donate to tsunami funds that dozens of other worthy charities in the country suffered critical blows.
Now, like a distance runner sprinting too often too early, we are stumbling towards the next lap too weary to summon our previous enthusiasm. Three monumental tragedies in the past four years have beleaguered the American conscious. Now as if jaded to tragedy, as if we’ve waited long enough to tell a morbid joke and laugh, American’s have begun to abuse national tragedy for personal gain. After 9/11 no one even considered looting or damaging abandoned Manhattan stores. After the tsunami no one even considered siphoning from the flow of money destined for southeastern Asia. But now, in the wake of nearly unprecedented damage at the hands of nature, New Orleans has been racked by nearly unprecedented and callous crime at the hands of Americans.
I would like to believe that the immediate outpour of American sympathies have been genuine, but when violence and fraud tread so closely on its heels, this is a difficult line to accept. I hope that the mainstream of America remains as awestruck and genuinely empathic as this catastrophe begs. It seems, though, that whatever aspect of the world tragedies had shamed scam artists – who seem uniquely rampant thanks to American society and culture – into developing a conscience has faded. Donation scams have cropped up everywhere.
Though this kind of looting and scamming seems to thrive uniquely through American society, it is true that it does not reflect the majority of Americans. For this I am thankful, but it is still disconcerting that Americans tend to identify more with soundbytes and sensationalist headlines than in-depth objective reporting. It’s still disconcerting that Americans want their news and empathy as pre-packaged as their bigmacs. People get furious without ever knowing exactly what it is they are talking about. Often times it is all they can do to regurgitate the soundbytes they are fed.
