Ingrates. Katrina home not appreciated

[Abbey Normal]

Sitarro, you'll love this one.

2 unrepentant about selling Katrina gift
By WOODY BAIRD, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 53 minutes ago

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New Orleans.

"Take it up with God," an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000.

Church members said they feel their generosity was abused by scam artists. They are no longer even sure that the couple were left homeless by Katrina or that they were a couple at all.

"They came in humble like they really needed a new start, and our hearts went out to them," said Jean Phillips, a real estate agent and member of the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ. "They actually begged for the home."

The church was also shocked by an ungrateful interview the couple gave with WHBQ-TV in Memphis.

"I really don't like this area," said Delores Thompson. "I really didn't, and I didn't know anybody, so that's why I didn't move in and I sold it."

Thompson, reached at a New Orleans phone number by The Associated Press on Tuesday, thanked the church for its generosity but said she saw nothing wrong in selling the three-bedroom, two-bath house.

"Do I have any legal problems? What do you mean? The house was given to me," she said. "I have the paperwork and everything."

She refused further comment and hung up.

...

The committee also heard how the family had lost its home and most of its possessions and how the children, a 14-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy, were eager to get back in school. The family said it wanted to resettle in Memphis.

After the church settled on Thompson, real estate agent Phillips helped her pick out the house she wanted, and it was bought in Thompson's name. She took possession in February and sold it in September. Property transfer records for the resale list her as unmarried; the papers from the original sale list her as married.

"I feel like it was a sham or a ripoff," Covington said.

The church hasn't discussed legal action, but the members are upset because the house could have gone to a more needy family, Covington said.

Thompson claimed she and her family were living in an apartment supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but did not invite Phillips over during the house search.

"She didn't want me coming over there," Phillips said. "She'd say, `I'll meet you.'"

Covington's husband, Edward, said the family had been listed by FEMA as displaced. But he said the church took Thompson's word for it that their house was destroyed.

Full article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061122/ap_on_re_us/katrina_gift_house_8

 

[red states rule]

Hurricane Katrina; Has America Forgotten?
This week marked the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which means it’s time for white Americans to look into the mirror and ask themselves what they have done to make life easier for the millions of impoverished Blacks they allowed to drown in New Orleans. The answer is, to put it bluntly, diddly squat. Despite all the promises to rebuild the Chocolate City and restore it to its original chocolatey goodness, houses ripped from their foundations still rest in the middle of the streets, with large crowds of local politicians standing around wondering what Bush is going to do about it. Parts of the Gulf of Mexico are still completely underwater. The thousands who fled Louisiana haven't been offered enough cash incentives to come back, and the grinning skeletons of entire Black families who remained behind carpet the rooftops to this day, patiently waiting for rescue teams that will never come.

We can never completely repay African-Americans for what we did to them in New Orleans, nor can we ever wash the blood of slavery off our hands. But there are meaningless little gestures we can make to show the Black community that we at least care enough to pretend like we give damn about their suffering. Naming a street in your community after Dr. Martin Luther King, for instance. Giving Halle Berry an Oscar. And most importantly, understanding that African Americans are essentially helpless children who need constant nurturing to survive.

About ten years ago, I noticed a homeless African-American man panhandling on the street corner outside my apartment building. Realizing that as a white man I was somehow responsible for his sorry state of affairs, I felt obligated to make amends. So I gave the poor man a crisp ten dollar bill, and he thanked me profusely.

The next day, I passed the same guy begging for change again. I gave him another ten bucks as I walked by. “Blesh you shir,” he slurred. “Gah Blesh you!” I shook my head and reminded him that the money was his by rights. In an anglo-centric system of White Privilege built through the exploitation of African slaves, every dollar a white person earns is essentially stolen from a black person - or from any other minority (except for those damn Asians who are practically house Negroes because they work hard and don't complain).

On third day, the poor guy was still out there on the corner but he didn’t even bother to thank me when I gave him another ten dollars. He just nodded as if he had expected it. Nevertheless, I gave him ten dollars every single day for the next two or three weeks. By the end of the month, rent was due and I was a little short on cash, so I had to skip my reparations payments for a while. Then one afternoon as I was knitting macrame bong sweaters for Hempfest '96, there came a loud pounding on my door.

“YO, WHERE’S MY MONEY, BITCH?” A familiar voice shouted from the hall. “I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! OPEN UP!"

"I'm broke!" I cried. "I don't have any money to give you!"

“LIAR!" he growled back at me. "YOU TOOK ME FROM AFRICA AND BROUGHT ME OVER HERE IN CHAINS! NOW I WANT MY FORTY ACRES AND A MULE!!!”

As a progressive American sensitive to the plight of the oppressed hyphenated peoples, and aware that as a White American I am to totally blame for it, how could I possibly argue with him? I quickly slipped my credit card under the door, and listened as his footsteps dwindled away down the hall.

That was the last I heard from him until a couple weeks ago, when he knocked on my door as I was knitting bong sweaters for Hempfest '06. I looked through the peephole and saw a transformed man. Clean cut, shaven, and wearing a nice suit, he was almost completely indistinguishable from the downtrodden street bum I had met ten years before.

“I want to shake your hand,” he said when I opened the door and greeted him. “Before I met you, I was a broken man, and convinced that I was totally to blame for my condition. But your stup...err, generosity opened my eyes. Thanks to you, I was able to rise up out of the gutter and begin a rewarding and lucrative career transforming white guilt into cold hard cash. Now I'm running for Congress in the State of Maryland, and I'm counting on your support.”

“Of course, Mr. Mfume!" I agreed, beaming with pride. "I'll be more than happy to help in any way I can! I'll campaign, I'll pass out flyers, whatever you want!"

“Actually," he replied, clearing his throat, "they cancelled your credit card. I ‘ll need a new one.”

Later that evening, as I crawled onto the mountain of delinquent credit card bills and “pay or vacate notices” I've been sleeping on since I pawned my flotation tank, I congratulated myself on a job well done. In a small way, I had fulfilled my duty as the descendent of people with the same color skin as slave owners to enrich the lives of people with the same color skin as slaves 150 years in the grave.

No longer can the racist great, great, great, great grandchildren of plantation owners use the fact that they weren't even alive during the era of slavery to escape their responsibility for the plight of African-Americans. Hurricane Katrina will make sure of that. Like Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, it will forever serve as an annual booster shot of white guilt.

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/2006/09/hurricane_katri.html

 

[nukeman]

But that is pretty typical of almost everyone I ever met in New Orleans. It is always a "whats in it for me" mentality. I cant believe the absolute pieces of crap that have come floating to the surface after this disaster..