Slop on New Orleans

I had walked down to the Pig with the intentions of buying chocolate milk and some crackers. I was mainly interested in just getting out of the house for thirty minutes or so. I made my purchase and sat down outside on the bench that harbored Slop as I drank my milk and ate my crackers. I tried to make small talk, but it grew more elaborate.

“Slop, what do you think about what is happening down there in New Orleans?” I asked.

“If dat be a bunch of rich, white people then they would have gotten help days ago,” Slop replied. “Those folks ain’t nothin’ but a poor bunch of niggas and no one wants to help them. The rich, white folks got out before dat storm.”

I sat quietly as I mulled over what Slop said and ate my crackers. It is interesting to get the perspective of a black man.

“Slop, what would you do in such a situation?” I asked.

“Hell, I don’t be knowin’” Slop said. “I do know dat niggas been through hell and we will do anything to survive.”

“Would the same thing happen here?” I asked.

“You put a hungry man in front of a store like dis full of food and da shit is gonna hit da fan,” Slop said. “Dat nigga is gonna break the glass and get him somethin’ to eat. We ain’t stupid.”

The fact of racial disparity hit home with me. We still do live in a segregated society. The difference is that it has less to do with the color of our skin or our culture, but more to do with our black citizen’s lack of financial resources. Many blacks are poor and live a tenuous line between solvency and bankruptcy. That makes them more susceptible to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. If you have watched any of the media coverage then you will see that the majority of displaced persons in New Orleans are poor minorities. I only saw a handful of white people in the coverage I watched today.