Mexico's 'Katrina'

After doing a little googling, it's become obvious that I've been joined by just about every other American writer who's reported on the flooding in the Southern Mexican state of Tabasco in drawing the link between it and the US' Hurricane Katrina. For starters, each constituted the biggest natural disaster that the two countries have seen in the last 50 years. Tabasco, like New Orleans, sits in the center of a geographical bowl. When heavy enough rains came, both were inevitably filled to capacity, leaving millions stranded on the roofs of their inundated homes.

However, perhaps more alarming are the striking similarities in the botched emergency response operations coordinated by the state and national governments of both Mexico and the US. Both disasters, hardly coming as surprises considering the natural vulnerability of the two regions, were met with devastatingly lethargic response efforts in which help didn't reach those who needed it the most for weeks. It's estimated that over half of the nearly 900,000 of Tabasco's 2.3 million residents affected by last week's floods remain helpless. Yesterday, speaking in a town in southern Tabasco, AMLO blamed the federal government for intentionally delaying its rescue of the hundreds of thousands of the state's poorest populations.

Post-Katrina, the Bush administration's display of what many saw as its apparent disregard for the well-being of New Orleans' black population, drew accusations of blatant racism. AMLO's blasting of President Fecal has adopted a similar tone, blaming the insufficient response on the administration's corruption and lack of interest in protecting those that it doesn't see as financially benefiting to the country. In drawing this link I think AMLO's concerns carry more truth than claims of Bush not caring about black people, as Kanye West so eloquently put it in his appearance on a Katrina benefit days after the hurricane hit.

The most visible outcome of the racism that targets minorities in the US and the indigenous in Mexico is the inferior social and economic position that they are forced into. While both countries' centuries-long traditions of institutional prejudice were no doubt the initial triggers of the poverty that now disproportionately traps people who look darker than those in power, I believe the answer is to work toward the deconstruction of the modern-day road blocks that perpetuate their economic subjugation. This is exactly the approach that Obama has embraced. Publicly condemning race-based help programs such as Affirmative Action, he believes the solution to the violation of the human rights of one group is by ensuring just treatment for all.

In following Obama's lead, instead of protesting the governments' indifference to the suffering of New Orleans' blacks or Tabasco's indigenous, we must speak out against the poverty that refuses them a chance to move up in society. By attacking racisms' tangible manifestation such as poverty, the government can begin to chip away at the source itself, societal prejudice. Because, as AMLO is justified in pointing out, until the rich elite are made to feel accountable for those that they rely on to be poor, poverty will continue to exist and those stuck in it will be given little attention in times of emergency.

Fortunately, a society consists more than just those in power. In the last two weeks, the Mexican people, like those in the US in the wake of Katrina, have shown an amazing capacity to join forces to do what the government seems incapable of doing and helping those most in need.

Volunteers from across Mexico have come to help. Raul Toledo Dehesa, who works for the government of Mexico City, arrived Saturday and immediately went to a relief center. He says Mexico City has donated firemen, medical teams, and 60 tons of water, food, and medicine collected from residents there since the flooding started. "We are here to help. Tabasco is confronting what is truly a tragic situation," says Mr. Toledo Dehesa. Some banks in Mexico City stayed open on Friday, a national holiday, to receive donations. "I have never seen this kind of solidarity."

TO HELP scroll to the end of the linked article where you can find nearly a dozen of different organizations involved in helping Tabasco that would certainly appreciate however much money you'd be willing to contribute.