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LibertadLatina
Commentary
LibertadLatina
expresses its condolences and
support for the victims of Hurricane
Katrina. We encourage the
public to donate funds and to
volunteer.
We also note that inadequate
responses to human crises by
authorities at the top and/or at the
bottom of official bureaucracies is
often linked to a victim's 'status'
in society.
This reality Leaves millions
of women and children facing an
ongoing crisis of sexual
exploitation without hope of rescue
because collectively, they are
"Little Brown
Maria."
Too many anti-exploitation
organizations ignore these
realities, which constantly stare us
in the face.
Only our unending efforts to reduce
the power of race, gender and
social class prejudice in government
and society will make a real
difference in saving lives.
Across the Americas, from
Langley Park,
Maryland to the
San Diego,
California Child Rape Camps
to Tijuana, Mexico and elsewhere,
public authorities continue to
NOT-ACT on clear information
about enslaved Latina women and
girls who are raped 30 times a day
and later are thrown away like
so-much trash.
Maria Still awaits rescue
today! Is anyone going to help
her?
(Maria does not have an ax to
chop her way to the roof of her
brothel. Nor is a helicopter
waiting for her!)
Chuck Goolsby
Sep. 4-6, 2005
PS.
Some personal observations about
government's response to Hurricane
Katrina.
As an Afro-Native American man, I
have just seen unfold on the TV
screens of CNN the mass-murder (by
negligence and sins of omission) of
what is likely to be between 5,000
and 10,000 (or more) innocent, poor
Americans, most of whom were Black.
I am not impressed with the
apologists who rationalize why CNN
could get to the starving masses
facing drowning, rape and murder,
but the U.S. and Louisiana state
government forces could not get
there. Not for 1, but for
FIVE DAYS.
Now, 8 days after Hurricane Katrina
first hit the Gulf states region of
the U.S., thousands of people remain
trapped in their homes crying out
for rescue. On September 5th,
actor Sean Penn, who participated in
boat rescues, stated that victims
remain all over New Orleans, and
that government relief forces are
perhaps one sixth of the number
actually needed.
The critics have valid points that
we all need to reflect upon.
The U.S. evacuated 500,000 persons
in 3 days from South Vietnam
as the North Vietnamese took over
the country. Hundreds of
thousands were airlifted to Iraq
during each of two major wars there,
in record time. Yet, when the
faces of agonized poor Black and
White southerners were shown on CNN,
somehow, the Federal Emergency
management Agency (FEMA), the
National Guard and all of the
President's men could not find their
way to the centers of tragedy.
This despite the fact that Federal,
state and local officials had
rehearsed exactly the scenario that
Katrina represented, several months
before the storm hit in a training
exercise called 'Hurricane Pam.'
Everything that happened in
Hurricane Katrina was anticipated
during 'Hurricane Pam.'
According to a tape of testimony
before a Federal Congressional
committee played on September 6,
2005 on CBS Radio News, an emergency
management official stated in June,
2005 that plans were in place to bus
poor people without transportation
out of the city of New Orleans in
the case of a major hurricane.
It never happened.
That FEMA's funds, resources and
power have been gutted in the name
of homeland security, in the
post-9/11 world, is a documented
fact.
A close look will also have to be
taken at the fact that conservative
Republicans tend toward wanting to
dismantle government services, and
especially any activity that does
not serve their well-off individual
and corporate contributors.
The Katrina catastrophe in the Gulf
states now has an entire 'spin'
machine in action to deny these
facts. but the truth will come
out.
In the mid-1980's during the
administration of Ronald Reagan, I
worked as a computer consultant in
the U.S. Department of Commerce.
I overheard a Republican activist in
the legal office I worked for state
angrily that "the 'commie pinkos'
in the National Weather Service now
want Doppler Radar" [a
technology that has saved thousands
of lives]. Was a similarly
absurd attitude taken toward FEMA's
role in domestic natural disaster
relief, leading to it being stripped
of its power to react?
Why on Earth did the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, and the City of New
Orleans government have their
requests for levee improvement
projects rejected for the past ten
years. Because of the race or
the voting habits of the vast
majority of New Orleaners?
On September 6, 2005, the Executive
of Montgomery County, Maryland,
Democrat Douglas Duncan, speaking on
WTOP Radio in Washington, DC, stated
explicitly that FEMA's ability to
respond to emergency situations had
deteriorated, and he, as executive
of one of the largest counties in
the Washington, DC suburbs (which
faces very real threats of terrorist
attack) could no longer count on
FEMA to assist local government.
Executive Duncan stated that
regional emergency planners would be
meeting soon to plan crisis
responses without relying on FEMA as
a strong partner. Mr. Duncan
noted that during the Washington, DC
area sniper crisis two years ago,
federal officials were on the scene
immediately, "unlike the actions of
FEMA in New Orleans."
Thank you Executive Duncan for being
honest with your constituents and
the U.S. public.
To the managers and first responders
(police, fire, emergency management,
health, medical National Guard and
active duty personnel, and
civilians, doing the tough and brave
work of rescue in the Gulf Coast
area)...
Thank you!
Similarities to government's
response to the sexual exploitation
of indigenous and Latina women and
children across the Americas.
We cannot help but note that for
many years, our cries of help for
'Little Brown Maria' have gone
unheeded. Time and again cases
of known child brothels in San
Diego, and 'mega-brothels' in the
Latin communities of Langley park,
Maryland and the extensive
environment of community and
workplace rape facing Latina girls
and women in Montgomery County,
Maryland have been brought to the
attention of federal, state and
local officials. Yet, nobody
acts to effect rescue in the most
severe cases.
When the victim is a white middle
class girl like Polly Klass (may she
rest in peace), the power of
government turns itself on in full
force.
Can the apologists really say that
the poor in New Orleans were treated
the same way that the federal
government would have treated a
location where, let's say, President
Bush might have been holed up in to
weather the storm? I don't
think so. No!
Would the U.S. public have tolerated
rescue crews sitting around for 5
days after the New York World Trade
Center Twin Towers were attacked, as
they complained that they 'it was
too dusty' to attempt any rescues?
No!
Can the apologists really
rationalize why white middle class
girls receive all of the power of
federal, state and local government
to rescue them from kidnap
situations, when 135,000 Mexican
children were kidnapped in a recent
3 year period, and many of those
girls and boys are forced to be sex
slaves, raped dozens of time a day,
in San Diego, California, Miami,
Florida, New York City and Langley
Park, Maryland, with no rescue in
sight, even when activists tell law
enforcement directly where these
crimes are happening? No!
The most unfortunate part of this
reality in the context of the human
rights of women and children's of
color, is that anti-exploitation and
anti-trafficking activists spend
much of their time trying to link
victims with government agencies who
traditionally, have not cared much
about the plight of exploited women
and children of color.
And now activists expect these law
enforcement organizations to solve
the issue of sex trafficking and
rape with impunity in immigrant
communities.? It is an
unrealistic goal, in the short-term.
In the long-run, we know that our
brothers and sisters in the criminal
justice system will get with the
program. In many jurisdictions
that just is not happening
today!
There is no justification for any of
this behavior.
What ties these behaviors together
is the use of 'traditional' forms of
social class, race and gender
prejudice to allow unspeakable
suffering to be reigned down on the
heads of innocent children, women
and men.
Only We the People can stand
up, speak up and demand that
official government act in a morally
righteous way. And that we
must demand today!
All victims await our effective
efforts to rescue them from violent
impunity. We cannot remain
silent! We all have a
responsibility to speak up!
Chuck Goolsby
Sep. 6-7, 2005
See Also:
 Racism
and Trafficking.
Defending
'Maria' from Impunity.
WTOP
News Radio, Washington, DC -
Extensive audio recordings of news
stories on the government's response
to Hurricane Katrina.
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