June 22, 2007
A RIOT OF ONE’S OWN
“Even when middle-class or wealthy families were displaced in, say, New Orleans, they mostly figured out how to get what they needed. For a start, they demanded it. Loudly. Insistently. But the people stuck in the shelters, black and white, were typically not only poorer but also less demanding, less assertive, less skilled in negotiating their way through the system. Poor families in the shelters were neglected precisely because they were suffering so patiently. After that experience, I caught myself thinking that the problem is not that the poor riot, but that they don’t riot enough.”
Nicholas D. Kristof, “Wretched of the Earth,” The New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 9, May 31, 2007.
Posted by Sasha at June 22, 2007 09:27 AM | TrackBack