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Gathering Place
Amy Defilippi, Abigail Hopkins, Chanel Galario, Karlee Gentemann, Bennett Valencia, Neilani Siatini, Rachel Thorburn and Tony Robbins






Hurricane’s victims
show need for stronger
fight against poverty

Who is floating dead in the streets of New Orleans? It is not the white lawyers, able-bodied politicians, middle-age doctors, thriving CEOs or even their friends and family. It is not people who can afford the rent and groceries without worry. Rather, the ones who are dead from Hurricane Katrina are the seniors, the frail, people of color and the poor.

The reason these people are dead is because we, as a society, do not care enough about their lives.

While one cannot deny that all people living in areas hit by the hurricane have suffered greatly, neither can one deny that the degree of suffering endured from this hurricane are directly correlated with income level and race.

Although we appreciate President Bush's verbal recognition of some of his responsibility for the Katrina catastrophe, we believe his understanding of his role is naive and superficial. The victims are owed more. While we are sure that there will be necessary reforms to disaster response, more radical changes desperately need to take place in our country to prevent our continued mistreatment and disregard for the poor. Bush's position on public assistance programs (e.g., welfare and Social Security) is deplorable. He appears to be actively advocating continued poverty while eliminating the estate tax to benefit the wealthy. It is important to view Hurricane Katrina not only as a natural disaster, but also as a human-made disaster. Twenty-seven percent of the New Orleans population lives below the poverty line. The real disaster is the chronic poverty that we as a country have allowed people to live in.

As social workers, we cannot stand quietly and witness the passive slaughter of our fellow citizens. The dire circumstances that Hurricane Katrina and our country's egregiously inadequate response have mandated that we, as humanists, raise our voices in support of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been victimized.

The destruction that Hurricane Katrina has caused is proof that we, as a society, have failed our nation's most marginalized. Although we cannot bring back the lives lost to Hurricane Katrina, we can show them the respect they deserve by admitting our failure to protect them from poverty. While it is impossible to go back in time, it is not impossible for all us to vow that we will do everything possible to end poverty. While Hurricane Katrina is a cruel wake-up call, it is a wake-up call nonetheless that we cannot ignore. It is time to demand that all people living in the United States, not just those with full wallets, deserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.


Amy Defilippi, Abigail Hopkins, Chanel Galario, Karlee Gentemann,
Bennett Valencia, Neilani Siatini, Rachel Thorburn and Tony
Robbins areofficers in the University of Hawaii-Manoa
School of Social Work.



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