The effects of Hurricane Katrina have been devastating. Most of its victims, about 80 percent, are black. When the final tally is made, the death toll might well exceed 20,000.

Since the victims are disproportionately black, the "race card" has inevitably been thrown into the "toxic soup." We have heard these catcalls: "President Bush doesn't care about blacks." "State and federal authorities were slow to react because the victims are not white." Did you notice that these exactly the same complaints recently when the famine in Niger first made the headlines? "The international community does not care about black Africans." "The international community was too slow to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Niger."

Step back for a moment and remove your race-based grievance lenses. Have you noticed that each time a calamity strikes black people, we are always looking up to the WHITE establishment or the West to save us?
Let me ask you these questions:

1. What do our own black leaders do to help our own people in distress?

2. Why didn't these black leaders say to hell with the white establishment and mobilize "black resources" to help the victims?

3. Must we always depend on the charity of the white establishment?
4. Do you see Rev. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, etc. etc. rolling up their sleeves plucking hurricane victims from floods, roof tops?
All the black leaders did was to fold their arms and blame the federal and state GOVERNMENTS for not responding quickly enough. We will never gain the respect of white people if we must always rely on them to save blacks in distress and misery. Are we saying Black America and Black Africa have no resources of their own?

Here is a list of countries that had promised aid to the hurricane victims by September 3, 2005:
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Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras,
Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

It is to our eternal shame that no African country, let alone black African, is included in the list. We are always asking others to help us but do we help ourselves?

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