Articles

Uncivil Tone of Discourse Survives Storm

Opinion by Jim Wooten
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sep. 9, 2005

Disasters reveal our character. Under stress, instincts and values collide. Our most primitive instincts are held in check not by the agents of law, but by religious, moral and ethical strictures that hold us accountable to our consciences for how we treat others.

Katrina, in ways often frightening, provided a chance to see our values and our institutions under stress. New Orleans' immediate descent into anarchy the moment authority was immobilized revealed a deeply troubling immunity in some segments of the population to the values required to sustain a healthy society.

Even elements of the city's police force participated in the looting before the force began to disintegrate. More than a quarter of a police force thought to be trained and disciplined disappeared within a week.

And Katrina revealed, too, in the political system an equivalent immunity to civility in political debate. We are most assuredly in a different America than existed even a decade ago.

The willingness of a former president to stand on foreign soil and criticize a sitting president, as Jimmy Carter did, redefines the presumed rules of political engagement.

The same is true of some politicians' response to Katrina. U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), a moderate, is not ordinarily given to the loose rhetoric of hip-hop artist Kanye West, who declared that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Yet Scott employed the cheap many-people-say gimmick to charge that " . . . this government did not respond as quickly as it should . . . because those were black people in New Orleans. If they were white, would this be happening?"

Accusations that so quickly debased public discourse bleed to the world. The Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors media in that region of the world, reports this interview on the Iranian News Network with Mahdi Fazaeli, director of the Iranian News Agency:

"Other media also state explicitly that the way the American politicians treat the area afflicted [by Hurricane Katrina] stems, in part, from the fact that blacks live in that area. Yesterday, Al-Jazeera issued an important news item: One of the reasons for this treatment is that blacks did not vote for Bush."

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, speaking to black Baptists in Miami on Wednesday, found a way to stoke racial resentment by picking up the radicals' theme. "We must . . . come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a deadly role in who survived and who did not," he said. The Kanye West subtext is clearly intended.

While millions of Americans have responded generously, volunteering and contributing more than $600 million to hurricane relief, the stress on the political fabric of this country reveals a system on the brink of complete meltdown. For a month or so after Sept. 11, the embittered left avoided using the disaster to score political points. Not since, though, has any misfortune, setback or this natural disaster been exempt.

Even in little ways, the meltdown is evident. U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met privately with Bush on Tuesday and then emerged to regurgitate the conversation. She urged him to fire Michael Brown, the Federal Emergency Management Agency director. "Why would I do that?" she quoted him as responding. Her further reply, and his, is given to set up her contention that Bush is "oblivious, in denial, dangerous."

The old rules are swept away. The anarchy of the streets of New Orleans is a microcosm of the rhetorical thuggery into which public discourse has descended.

Are we threatened? Yes, by both. And by that aspect of a culture that, as soon as the lights went off, turned predatory. And by a political climate that within a week of the disaster had turned predatory.

Under stress, most Americans reacted with generosity and nobility. They were inventive and selfless in finding ways to render aid, inviting strangers into their homes for what may be extended periods of time. That element of our national character, evident in the aftermath of Sept. 11, was personified by Gov. Sonny Perdue's expansive efforts to open the state's doors to succor Katrina's victims. That's the nation we want to be.

But the stress has revealed, too, something alarming about the nation we've built: It doesn't take much for the unraveling to start.

Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Copyright 2005 The Atlanta Journal Constitution. For more information, visit www.ajc.com.

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