My Bailiwick…

The hurricanes that have recently battered the southern states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama brought with them a shocking realization.  Millions of people in these profligate United States are poor - really, really poor.  They live hand-to-mouth.  They depend upon government assistance programs, emergency rooms, and food pantries.  When the order came to evacuate, they did, to the convention centers, arenas, and stadiums – wherever they were supposed to go to get transportation out of the ravaged cities and neighborhoods.  Then, as we all know, the recovery system broke down.  Now, incredibly, we’re waking up to the realization that there are just so many poor people in the country, they can’t all be cared for as well as we expect in times of disaster.  Who knew?

I’m finding it difficult to restrain my cynicism.  We all knew, every last one of us.  It’s just that we didn’t want to know, or we didn’t know what to do about it.  Or we thought people were poor because they’re lazy.  Or we just couldn’t stand to dig down into the racist underlayers of our culture or of our own experience.  There are a thousand reasons people are poor and as difficult as it is, we need to explore all of them.  But what we can’t do is say we didn’t know.

My expectation that our country will significantly explore and address the root causes of poverty is very low but my hope, inexplicably, remains high.  Everyone saw the images of frightened children, desperate mothers, angry young men, dying old folks.  They are now seared into our minds – into our imaginations - and that is the first thing that needs to happen.  We need to see our impoverished sisters and brothers.  Now we know them. 

Carla J. Bailey, Senior Pastor

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May 2005