Thursday, January 14, 2010

What's Wrong With These People

Haitian Americans have enough things on their minds right now than worrying about Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Since I know what it’s like to not know if your family is okay after a disaster. I also know how it feels to lose someone you care about unexpectedly like that. You know what makes that feeling even worse? When someone is saying they deserved it. Long after all the bodies have been discovered and the grieving is over you never forget those kinds of words. Who is this mortal human being that feels he’s righteous enough to tell the world what other humans deserve. What you should do is shut the hell up and help somebody. There are people trapped under collapsed buildings and rubble. Why don’t you take that black dude with the blonde afro from the 700 Club or Rush’s pill supplier, grab a couple of shovels and help dig some people out. You have the money. If you are too old and fragile to do anything but run your mouth, why don’t you send a few million of those dollars people call in to your show and contribute so you can stay on the air with your ignorance.

One day in Mississippi right after Katrina there was a man standing on a sidewalk with a big sign full of religious sayings. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about how the great flood came to wash out the sinners. I thought about my grandmother who went to church a few times a week and who I never heard utter a curse word. My post traumatic stress almost made me pull over and hurt that man really bad but I realized that none of the washed out sinners who raised me would want me in prison for doing him anything. I took the high road and didn’t acknowledge him. I hope all Haitians do the same to Pat Robertson. I would like to say not to acknowledge Rush Limbaugh but if I saw him in a parking lot I couldn’t make any promises.

These guys are supposed to represent the values of America? You have to be kidding me. If making insensitive comments about a natural disaster that has killed over 50,000 people is acceptable then we are doing something wrong.

5 comments:

Leigh C. said...

My first thought when I heard people saying New Orleans deserved it because of its sinful ways, all I could think was, "Nice thing to say about a place with more houses of worship for its population than any other place I've ever been." And that's of ALL denominations, ALL religions.

To borrow something from one of my son's animated movies, people spewing such filth are simply dirty trashcans full of poop. It's the LAST thing people in distress need. Shut your yap and HELP instead. And now I'll quit preaching to the choir, which has been happening a lot lately. 8-S

Anita said...

Yeah. I wish that instead of those guys we had more Jon Stewarts: http://gawker.com/5448750/jon-stewart-limbaugh-and-maddow-should-shut-up-about-haiti

I don't know how you keep your level-headedness. Or maybe it's just like you say, you had some very good role models and teachers and you work at it.

I dream of a world where there's a rule that if you broadcast slanderous hate speech you have to send 5% of your annual income to the folks you slandered -- 5% for every time you broadcast it. If you do it in the name of religion, it goes up to 10%.

K. said...

That's a good world, Anita!

What gets me is the utter cynicism of the remarks, especially Limbaugh's. He uses a horrific disaster to call attention to himself and grab off a rating point or two. As for Robertson, you'd think he would have learned by now that going public with superstitious mumbo jumbo isn't exactly the way to win converts. As

In the end, it's all a way of reassuring their adherents that they don't bear any responsibility and don't have to do anything.

Susanna Powers said...

The Haitian earthquake is different in many ways from the Katrina flood. But because of the many obvious similarities, our nerves are on edge and our hearts are aching in New Orleans. When they said on the news that the only currency in Haiti is water, that is what really rings true. What good is a paper dollar bill, when you cant eat it, drink it, or smoke it, and you have no thought past the current few days? The charity I endorse is the American Red Cross because they gave me exactly what I needed when I was delivered to Dallas. And later they helped a second time with financial assistance for us when we were in Florida and needed clothes. sp, n.o.

Anonymous said...

I just want to know who are those "washed out sinners who raised you"?