NCM > The Third World
NCM > The Third World: "Last week, the Third World came to America. Or better: America discovered itself to belong to the nations of the Third World.
The week began with the Mayor of New Orleans telling citizens to get out to town. A “Cat-5” hurricane was headed toward the city and would surely compromise its levies.
What became quickly clear in the days after was how many thousands—how vast a city within a city—of people there are in New Orleans, as in any other American city, who do not have a car to get out of town, or a credit card for gas, or a destination, or the health, or the youth, to pick up and leave.
It is insufficient to say that the First World population got out of town and left New Orleans to become a Third World capital, flooded and stinking and dangerous. It is truer to say: we discovered that New Orleans, like any other city, had been in the Third World all along.
These faces of terror and want and despair and menace and stoicism are faces from the Third World; they are American faces."
The week began with the Mayor of New Orleans telling citizens to get out to town. A “Cat-5” hurricane was headed toward the city and would surely compromise its levies.
What became quickly clear in the days after was how many thousands—how vast a city within a city—of people there are in New Orleans, as in any other American city, who do not have a car to get out of town, or a credit card for gas, or a destination, or the health, or the youth, to pick up and leave.
It is insufficient to say that the First World population got out of town and left New Orleans to become a Third World capital, flooded and stinking and dangerous. It is truer to say: we discovered that New Orleans, like any other city, had been in the Third World all along.
These faces of terror and want and despair and menace and stoicism are faces from the Third World; they are American faces."
posted by Blackgold at 6:52 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home